A Part to Play
by QueenMegaera
Summary: James wants to figure the Quartermaster out. Q thought he had Bond all figured out already. When Q's expertise is needed to bring down another mastermind, neither of them knows what they're in for. Post-Skyfall. Slash. 00Q.
1. Passing the Test

A/N: _When I chose to make this a multi-chapter story,__I chose to change the title of this fic in order for the title to represent the whole story and not just the first chapter. I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion._

Pairing: _00Q, a.k.a. Craig!Bond/Whishaw!Q_

Warnings: _Light slash, UST, canon-levels of violence. Highly unlikely description of a case for the MI6, probably. Not that the Bond stories are generally famous for their realism._

Disclaimer: _I don't know what belongs to the estate of Ian Fleming and what belongs to the Broccoli's, but nothing belongs to me._

**SPOILERS FOR SKYFALL.**

* * *

_"Skyfall is where we start  
A thousand miles and poles apart"_

- Adele, _Skyfall_

**Passing the Test**

"Q". It's a strange soubriquet, but he has got used to it quicker than even he had thought he would. Coming from a world of anonymous geniuses, who've sometimes never even seen their best friends in real life, he is used to nicknames, codenames, handles and aliases meaning more than the bunch of letters on his birth certificate. At this point, he's not sure he would turn around if someone shouted that name after him on the street.

He is Q now. It's his job, and his job has become his life. Not only does it take up most of his present time, it also stretches out over all his future – once you're in the secret service you're there for life, one way or another. While the Quartermaster might not see much of the field, he is an integral part of MI6, and considering their line of business, he's likely to be there longer than his colleagues in the field.

Sometimes he wishes he could tell his father. The old man would be ecstatic – he has always loved a good spy-novel. Q would like to introduce his father to 007. That man could have stepped out of one of his father's favourite novels: the very personification of old school MI6.

There are, of course, several agents whose missions fall on Q's table; nice, quiet men and women in crisp black suits who come to him and pick up their gear, walk off and do their job, and then come back to him with the gear before – or sometimes after – they go to be debriefed. People who follow the rules and the guidelines. Bond is nothing like these people.

Opinions go apart on whether Bond is a prodigy or a relic, the best or the worst of MI6, but everyone agrees that he has a knack for getting the job done, and for getting a lot of things destroyed in the process – especially q-branch gear. Q has looked at his predecessors' logs; he knows that Bond has always had this habit of making the Quartermasters tear their hair out, be they old men or young ones. He is glad that they don't hand out things like exploding chewing gums and heavily armed vehicles right and left anymore. He doesn't want to have agent 007 wielding that kind of equipment anywhere near him, thank you very much.

Right now, however, Q is quite relieved that his father believes that Q lives a slow, quiet life working with IT-support for a smallish estate agency in Vauxhall. He thanks whoever is watching – well, apart from the people back at the headquarters who might be watching through CCTV footage – that he will never have to tell his father about this night.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q explained during his job interview – when asked what his weaknesses were – that he's afraid of flying, and the powers that be promised him that his job description didn't include travel. Apparently, they lied to him. Not much of a lie, he has to admit; after all, they haven't sent him further than Reading. People _commute_ between Reading and London.

It is the middle of night, but it is Saturday, so the streets are not empty. Girls in way too short skirts and way too high heels who manage to make even Q feel old are walking up and down the streets, heading in giggling gaggles from one party to another. He's not up there with them, though. He's working his particular brand of magic on an old stationary computer in a damp basement, trying to extract information of national importance. Oh, the joy of trying to explain to M, without sounding condescending, that no, Q can't just hack into any hard drive in the world remotely if it's not at least connected to a server. This one wasn't. So here he is, on his first field operation.

Since the moment they told him he would be going out on the field, Q's nerves have been all over the place. He had basic field training, when he was hired. Effort was put in make sure that, should it ever be necessary, Q is mentally stable enough not to scream his head off and blow his cover, fit enough to run away, and able to fire the weapons he now helps develop with reasonable proficiency. They taught him the bare necessities, nothing more. They always intended to just shove him behind a desk. The training had mostly been to give him a fighting chance should the wrong kind of person ever find out that he wasn't in fact working for an estate agency. He has never really put any of his basic training to use. Not before tonight.

It is a sensitive case, in a lot of ways. MI6 rarely work on British soil – it usually falls under some other agency's jurisdiction, if not several, and MI5 _do_ get so prissy about this sort of thing. In this case, though, MI6 has just spent months trying to bring down an international illegal weapons cartel, and have located one of their customers in Reading, of all backwater places. They need the information these customers – some kind of MC-club turned drug-dealers – can give them. Usually, they would cooperate with the local police on this sort of thing, get them to make a raid and deliver the computer to MI6, but the police have nothing on these people yet, and could find no legal grounds to go in, or to arrest any of the known members. So it has to be done in a less official fashion.

As could be expected, though, these people weren't the types to leave their property lying around unguarded for long. Ergo, they needed to be sure not only that they_ would_ find all that possibly_ could_ be found, but also that they found it as quickly and discreetly as possible and then get the hell out. So yes, send in the resident computer genius, why don't you? And then send 007 to watch over him. _Because that will be fine, _Q thinks to himself as he cracks yet another ridiculously simple security code. _That will be just brilliant, won't it? Because things don't have a tendency of blowing up when Bond's around. Not at all._

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q gave Bond his gun for the mission this morning, at the same time as he chose one for himself.

"Do you know how to use that?" Bond asked, one raised eyebrow on an otherwise expressionless face.

"I do test them before I hand them to you, 007,"Q replied.

"I've never seen you on the firing range."

"That's because I go there in the mornings when most people do, while you always come to work either five hours before or five hours after everyone else. If indeed you come in at all."

"'If indeed'?"

A tiny hint of a smirk appeared on Bond's lips.

"Stop it," Q snapped. "I saw the footage of that house you reduced to rubble up in Scotland. You might have grown up in the middle of nowhere, but you're certainly no less posh than I am."

Bond didn't reply to that, and Q realised too late that he had crossed a line.

No one mentions Skyfall to James Bond, for so many reasons.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

On the car ride over, Q contemplated his own obituary. Not in panic, but rather with some kind of morbid fascination when he realised that it was entirely possible that he'd die tonight.

After the Skyfall incident, Q had a long line of meetings with M, discussing all the ways they could and should secure the old headquarters at Vauxhall before they returned there: the surveillance, the alarms, the lock-down systems, and the digital security. Q had practically been given free hands, and in his mid-twenties he had constructed his Magnum Opus. This was what came to him when he sat in the car: that if he dies tonight, this will be his legacy.

When they stepped out of the car and it drove away, Q realised he didn't even know the name of the agent behind the wheel, who was to be their back-up and would be listening in along with the people back home. For this night, he knew, she was called Carroll. Maybe someone was trying to be funny and her real name was Alice? Anyway, she was Bond's age. Seeing them next to each other really brought it home to Q that Bond was middle-aged. He didn't think he'd ever seen Bond with a woman his own age – and gratia de CCTV, he has seen James Bond with a lot of women, both the ones he had professional motives for seducing and the ones he just seemed to pick up as he went along.

Getting into the building was a joint effort. Q took them past the electronic security systems, Bond took them past the guards – a couple of ruffians who made Q wonder just what kind of organisation they were breaking in to. They looked like your average beefed up National Front-members.

Now they're dead (or at least unconscious, Q didn't bother to check as he walked after Bond over the bodies), lying in the still spreading pools of their own blood in the same building as the basement room where Q is presently standing, fingers on the keyboard and eyes on the screen, hacking his way in, downloading anything that looks remotely important. He wants to go into the documents, see if he's got what they're looking for, but there's no time. Intelligence says these guys change their guards twice every night. That is how they were located in the first place – the pattern was too conspicuous.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q is about to pull out the USB-stick when a door slams somewhere nearby. Swift and soundless, Bond runs to the door, looks outside, and then looks back at Q. Q wipes the last of his traces and follows. A second later they're out in a hallway and Bond is looking in the direction the sound came from.

"Stay here," he wheezes to Q and goes off.

"Bond!" someone at Vauxhall shouts into their ears.

Q guesses that Bond isn't supposed to leave him alone, but he's not about to question the agent's judgement at a time like this. Still, he tucks the USB-stick away safely and pulls out his gun instead. When he hears the sound of fighting and guns going off from the direction Bond went off in, he aims the gun at that doorway and repeats over and over to himself: "If it's not Bond, I'll shoot; if it's not Bond, I'll shoot; if it's not Bond, I'll shoot."

Time passes in a strange fashion. It feels as if glaciers are melting into the sea while he stands there; it feels like a single slow-motion beat of a hummingbird's wing.

A figure appears in the doorway. It isn't Bond. Q fires. The figures slumps and falls to the floor with a sickening thud. A second figure appears, still not Bond, and Q fires a second time, but maybe he has begun to shake or maybe the man ducked when he saw his dead friend on the floor, because this time Q misses. For a second, the man in the doorway stares at Q, and Q stares at him. Then Q realises he is in the other man's line of fire and throws himself into the doorway he and Bond left moments ago. Bullets fly past him, and then another weapon is fired further away. He hears the sound of someone running away, followed by Bond's voice echoing down the hallway.

"Q?"

"Here."

He walks out into the hallway, with his guard still up, holding the gun. Bond is walking up to him.

"Are you hurt?"

"No," Q says, and hopes it's true. If he was in shock, he wouldn't know, would he? He doesn't feel like he's in shock, though; he feels disturbingly alright.

"One of them got away," Bond says. "Did he see you?"

"Yes."

Bond curses under his breath, grabs Q's arm and pulls him away.

"Let's go."

Q allows himself to be unceremoniously dragged towards the nearest exit. He checks his pocket once for the USB-stick. It's still there. They walk past the man Q shot, and Q sees the empty eyes staring at the ceiling and the blood that is still seeping out from the man's body. It's so red. It seems redder than the blood of all the people he's watched Bond and his Double O colleagues kill.

"Don't look," Bond says and tugs at his arm, and Q feels like he's being rescued and patronized at the same time.

In another moment they are out on the street. Fresh air hits Q's face, and it's almost as if he had forgotten that the sky and the open air existed.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

They manage to round two corners and step onto a main street before Q has to stop, lean over and be sick. His head spins. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and marvels at the gentle gesture from Bond. At the same time he can tell that Bond is not focused on him; Bond is talking to Vauxhall, briefing them on the situation.

When Q has to hunch down because his head is still spinning and he's afraid he'll fall over, Bond hunches down next to him.

"Did he get a good look at you?" he asks.

"What?"

"The man who got away."

"I think so."

"We've been compromised," Bond says, clearly addressing Vauxhall now.

"Take care of it," says the voice in their ears. "_Discreetly_, Bond. Don't endanger this operation, and _don't _endanger the Quartermaster."

"Hypocrites," Q mutters, and sees Bond smile.

"If he had time to see you, you should have had time to shoot him," he says to Q.

"I _tried_."

Bond doesn't have time to reply before a female voice interrupts them.

"Is he alright?"

It's not Carroll. Q feels like cursing. He carefully raises his head to see one of those groups of party-dressed girls approach them.

"He'll be fine," Bond says, turning on the charm like a switch. "Just had a bit too much to drink."

"Aw, poor thing."

A brunette simmers into Q's view.

"You want some water, love? I've got a bottle in my bag."

That would actually be nice, Q thinks.

"Yes, please."

One of the other girls starts questioning why the brunette is carrying around whole bottles of water, but she ignores it and gives Q a bottle that says Diet Coke but has clearly been washed many times since it contained anything of the sort. Q gratefully accepts it.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. I'm Sarah. This is Anne, Lucy and Becky."

The girls say hello to them. Q might be dazed, but he clearly notices at least two of them checking 007 out, and not for the first time he wonders what it is that makes women look at James Bond like that, and why they never look that way at Q. Bond is old enough to be their father, for god's sake.

"Nice to meet you. I'm James," Bond says, leaving out the family name for once, "and this is Quentin."

Oh, is it _really_, Q thinks. How _droll_.

"He's a bit of a lightweight," Bond adds. "He's not really used to drinking." He turns and looks Q in the eye. His tone doesn't change, but there's a serious and almost compassionate look in his eyes as he says: "Don't worry, Q. Your tolerance level will get better with time."

"I was fine with my tolerance level the way it was, actually."

The girls laugh. Bond doesn't.

"You know what you need, love?" one of the girls says. "You need to get back on your feet. Walk it off, yeah, get a restorer? You two should come with us, we were just moving on to this new place round the corner, everyone's talkin' 'bout it."

Q is about to politely decline when he sees Bond look behind them, suddenly on alert. Then Bond's arm grabs him around the waist and hauls him up as if he was a ragdoll.

"Sounds interesting," Bond says. "Let's have a look."

The girls giggle. Q feels his pulse race as he wonders what Bond saw.

"What about the people we ran in to back there?" he asks, not able to make up a story of any detail on the spot – he should be, usually he would be, but for some reason nothing comes to him. At least he's standing up and his head has stopped spinning.

"They're probably right behind us," Bond says, and makes it sound like that's a good thing. "Let Carroll worry about that, and we'll worry about getting you a dry place to sit down somewhere."

"Oh, were you out with a gang?" the girl Q thinks was Becky says.

"Not really, we just ran into a couple of people we knew. And then we ran away from them."

Bond smiles and the girls laugh again.

"Lead the way then," Bond says.

Sarah grabs Q's arm in a highly proprietary way, and Q doesn't know what to do except pretend like nothing. Bond smiles at him, that barely-noticeable, lopsided grin of his, and Q positively wants to strangle the man.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The place is small and loud. It has a bar, a dance floor that's barely big enough to swing a cat on but still crowded enough that it's impossible to see across it, and a row of mismatched sofas along one wall where the girls plant Q and Bond. Becky and Anne – Q is fairly sure he's figured out who's who now – pull Bond down into one sofa and sit down on each side of him; Sarah pulls Q into the sofa opposite and Lucy joins them. It strikes Q that this is definitely the weirdest turn he's seen an operation take, and that's saying something.

He pretends to send a text, sending the material he gathered earlier to Q-branch, and then he listens to his team analyse it while he pretends to listen to Sarah. What Bond does he's not sure, he can't hear a thing other than the report from Q-branch and the blaring music, but each time he looks Bond's way, the other man is doing a brilliant impression of someone who's not sure how they ended up where they are but think they might be enjoying themselves. Q's fairly sure Bond is actually just waiting to hear from Carroll, who's been silent since the short "got it" that she uttered before she went after the missing guard.

Sarah asks Q something he can't answer because he hasn't been listening to what she's saying, and he gets out of it by excusing himself and going to the men's room. Behind that door the volume decreases considerably, much to his relief. It also means he can now hear the feed from Bond's earpiece clearly. Bond is being interrogated by the girls, and clearly Q's absence means that the conversation has turned to him.

"He's sweet, your friend," says a voice; Anne maybe. "Where'd you meet him?"

"Work," Bond answers.

"Really?" the girl asks. She sounds doubtful. "You don't look like you'd be working at the same place as him, 's all."

"Well, he's my boss," Bond says with a smile in his voice, and the girls laugh hysterically. If they only knew.

As Q washes his hands, he hears Becky ask:

"No, come on, really. Are you, like, his sugar daddy or something?" the girl Becky says, and Q nearly laughs out loud right there in front of the stainless-steel-sink. At the Vauxhall-end of the line, someone actually does, unprofessionally enough, and then abruptly goes quiet again.

"No," Bond replies, and Q wonders if that is mirth he hears in 007's voice.

"You've been checking him out all night, though," Becky insists, as Q opens the door and goes back out into the club. "You haven't taken your eyes off of him."

That is probably true, Q thinks, considering the previous events of the evening.

"I'm just trying to see if he's feeling better," he hears Bond say.

"Right," the girl replies, her doubt obvious in her voice. "Look, we're not prejudists or anything, if you guys are doing the nasty, we're not gonna call his parents and tell on you."

Q freezes then, not because of what he is hearing, but because of what he is seeing. Only yards away, the guy who got away from them is scouring the room. Q turns away before he is spotted. In an instant he feels lightheaded again. He focuses on not changing his pace, not doing anything to attract attention or give himself away. "He's here," he whispers, but it seems the sound doesn't reach the microphone well enough over the music, because no one responds. Vauxhall is silent, and Bond, still at the other end of the room, doesn't even turn to look at him, so he can't have heard either. Q's heart isn't racing – he's better trained than to resort to panic – but he can feel his heartbeats against his ribs. He's almost at the sofas now. He can't let the girls notice that anything is wrong, they could blow their cover in a second. But he has to tell Bond.

Although, if the girls think that he and Bond are, well, _together_...

Acting skills – Q's not sure he has them. But he's always considered himself to have a good poker face, and that's at least along the same lines, isn't it?

Instead of going back to his previous seat, Q walks straight up to the sofa where Bond sits. The three occupants look up at him: Bond with curiosity, the girls with the expression of having been caught red handed.

"Do you mind?" Q mimes to Anna – if Anna's the blonde – over the music, and she shakes her head and scrambles over to where Q sat before, never taking her eyes off him. Neither does Bond, who raises an eyebrow questioningly. The girls go quiet all of a sudden. Q sits down closer than strictly necessary, thigh against thigh and half turned towards Bond. He puts one hand on Bond's shoulder and leans in to whisper in his ear, which conveniently also means he's speaking into Bond's earpiece:

"He's here. Behind me. Black leather jacket, sunglasses, shaved head, flat nose."

"Roger that," he hears a voice from HQ reply in his ear. Then Bond's mouth is next to Q's ear, and his warm breath ghosts over Q's skin when he replies:

"Did he see you?"

"I don't think so. What'll you do?"

Because it is Bond that will have to act. Q feels more urgently than ever how very useless he is when he's away from his keyboards and monitors. True, someone else is there right now, handling that end, but it isn't him – they can't do half of what he could do. The only weapon Q has here – apart from the gun he hadn't thought he would use which still hides under his cardigan – is a smartphone, and even if it's "smart" enough to make your regular iPhone look like an Amiga computer, it has precious little to interact with in this locale. Especially against an armed thug. How very Neolithic fieldwork seems from this end – all brawn, and fire, and pulse ringing in one's ears.

"No firearms among the civilians, 007," headquarters but in. "Get yourself and the Quartermaster out of there _quietly_."

Q sees Bond's eyes flicker to look for the man, and instinctively turns to see for himself as well – back in Vauxhall he would have been monitoring the situation on three different screens, now he's flying blind. He is stopped by Bond's hand that immediately comes up to cup the side of his face and turn it back towards the agent, shielding him from the thug's view.

"We'll hide you until I can see what he does," 007 whispers. "Play along."

That final order doesn't even have time to register in Q's brain before there is a mouth on his. A second of pure shock passes before a squeak and a giggle from the opposite sofa shakes Q out of it and he realises what is happening and why, and brings an arm up to Bond's shoulders to complete the illusion. Not that it isn't convincing already – Bond is obviously a method actor. It has been a year since Q had a girlfriend, six months since he last got laid and about as long since he last had someone else's tongue in his mouth. His mind is kept crystal clear by the knowledge that somewhere on the dance floor behind him is a man who likely wants to put a bullet through his head, but meanwhile his body is responding in ways that he'd rather it didn't. He feels Bond's hand travel downwards between them, not towards Q's hip but to his own. The agent is getting ready to draw his gun if it becomes necessary, at the same time as he's licking at the inside of Q's mouth.

Adrenaline pumps through Q's body. There is a man lying dead on the floor of a building only a few blocks away because of Q. There is a man next to him who is trained to kill and has at least a dozen years of service on him whose tongue is doing wicked things to Q's, and there is a man somewhere nearby ready to kill them both any second. Q hasn't felt this alive since he hacked into MI5's records. (MI6 complimented him greatly on that during that job interview.)

Bond, in complete control of the kiss even though Q has been doing his best to "play along", breaks it off by pulling away and glancing over Q's shoulder. Once again Q wants to turn, to see what 007 sees, but this time he stops himself before he as much as flinches.

"I'm going to get a drink," Bond says with a smile and a tone Q recognises from every single one of Bond's missions (007 always manages to find a woman that it is somehow necessary to charm, and usually his reasoning can't be proven unsound either). Q wonders if the people listening back in Vauxhall recognise that tone too, and if they realise what just happened.

"Just a pint, please," Q replies, remembering that he is supposed to have had a bit too much already. On his way past him, Bond puts a hand on Q's thigh. It's a show for the people around them, but it also manages to let Bond know exactly how Q's body is responding to all of this. The older man cocks an eyebrow at him, and if he were a bit worse at keeping his cool, Q would curse, or look away in embarrassment. Instead he smiles and meets Bond's eyes. Two can play this game.

"Maybe your tolerance levels are rising already," Bond says and disappears into the crowd – not to buy drinks, Q is perfectly aware, but to take care of the guy with the flat nose.

"No need to look so desolate, love, he's gone to the bar, not the north pole," Becky says beside him, looking as smug as the cat who ate the canary now that she thinks her theory has been proven right. "You're not gonna die from being apart for five minutes."

_I certainly hope so,_ Q thinks.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He hears the fight through the earpiece. He hardly knows what to do with himself, sitting here in a sofa, smiling at his new and highly temporary circle of friends, while listening to someone's skull being bashed in.

It feels like eons have passed before he hears Bond's voice.

"We're heading out. Q, pretend you got a text or something and meet us outside."

Q does just that, reaching for his phone and scrolling a bit before he announces that it's "James" and he has to go. He leaves the girls surprised and confused.

When he gets outside, the car is there. Carroll pulls down the window a few inches and tells him to get into the back seat. When he follows her order he sees Bond, holding a gun to the neck of the flat-nosed bloke, who is now sitting in the passenger seat and is even more flat-nosed than he was before. With his free hand, Bond hands Q what looks like a gin and tonic. It looks like it's fresh from the bar, not a drop spilled.

"I thought you might need more than a pint," Bond says.

Q accepts it without a word and gulps it down quicker than he ought to.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The following day turns out to be a series of frustrations. Q doesn't sleep well, so right there the day is doomed before it has begun. The adrenaline overload from the night before turns into a raging need for cups and cups of strong tea. A long and uncomfortable debriefing is the first thing on his schedule, and when it's over he heads straight for the nearest kettle to soothe his frayed nerves. When he finally walks into Q-branch the room doesn't exactly go quiet, but no one says good morning to him, which is unusual. Then Jenkinson – who is a few years older than him and somehow feels that this gives her the right to occasionally disregard that he's her boss, even though the majority of the Q-branch staff are older than both of them – says:

"Successful fieldwork yesterday, sir?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" he replies, not wanting to dwell. But Jenkinson, true to her nature, doesn't let go:

"We heard you did really well. Improvisation, playing along and all that."

Cook who sits opposite Jenkinson blushes vividly, and Q is glad it's not him turning red. So much for office morale, he thinks.

"Not everyone has as bad of a poker face as you, Jenkinson," he counters and takes a comforting sip of his tea. "Do a complete check on all security scripts for in-house emails, and give me a three page report. I want it by lunch."

She stares at him.

"But ... that's entirely unnecessary, we've just ..."

"Yes, it is," Q interrupts, and keeps walking towards his office. Behind him he can hear Cook snigger and Jenkinson curse under her breath. He smiles down into the teacup, but he can't help wondering if all of Q-branch knows that he spent last night being abducted by a bunch of chatty tweens and getting snogged by 007.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The information they have retrieved turns out to be good, but not as extensive as they had hoped for – certainly not nearly enough to bring the whole league down. Q hears from Miss Moneypenny that MI5 have been calling to ask what the hell MI6 were doing in central Reading. Apparently M is none too happy.

When evening rolls around, Q sits in his office and watches through the glass wall as his team packs up and goes home, one by one. He is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he killed a man yesterday, and no one, not even the MI6 counsellor he was forced to talk to before lunch, seems to think it's a very big deal. For a moment he wonders if this is a part of his life now.

Then he shakes himself. Of course it is a part of his life – he works for MI6. He has to watch agents shoot down their targets on what is at least a weekly basis, and yes, he has to be able to do the same if the situation should call for it. He can't get cold feet after his first little fieldtrip. He's the Quartermaster of the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service. He hopes to keep the position for many years to come.

When Q-branch is completely empty, he heads out into the lab and picks up the gun he used the night before. It has been cleaned and unloaded. He picks out the right ammunition from their extensive collection and heads down to the firing range in the basement. Because this is what you do when you get a scare: you get back in the saddle. And besides, he thinks, he can always imagine that the target board is Jenkinson's freckled face. Or possibly those self-entitled people at MI5.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The firing range is nearly empty. Q only hears the sound of one lonely gun as he walks past empty booths. Q prefers booth nine. It's not an OCD-thing, he tells himself. It's just one of those small quirks all humans have: preferring one thing over its absolutely equal substitute out of nostalgia. Incidentally, Q shot his first and only bull's eye from booth nine.

007 is in booth seven. Q wonders if that's some sort of 'idée fix' on the agent's part.

Bond must have noticed that someone entered the basement room, because when Q's about to pass Bond has taken off his earmuffs and turns around to greet him.

"Q."

"007."

It strikes Q that this is one actual advantage Q has over 007: he knows James Bond's name, but Bond doesn't know his.

"You did a good job, yesterday," Bond says, and his face is so blank that Q knows he's not just teasing him.

"Thank you."

He keeps a calm tone, but he can't deny the little boy in him is jumping up and down in joy – he's being complimented on his field work by the most legendary of Her Majesty's secret agents. If only he could tell his father that – and leave out any other details.

"I thought you only went down here in the mornings?" Bond says as Q is about to move on.

Q doesn't know what to say that will explain his change in habit that will not at the same time sound as if he's admitting to some kind of weakness, or trauma, or embarrassing overreaction, so he says nothing. The next second, Bond has reached out and grabbed Q.

"Come here."

He pulls Q in front of him and hands him the gun. It's not the palm print-controlled Walther, it's an old-fashioned Beretta, slightly larger than the guns Q is used to. Bond's hands are resting lightly on Q's shoulders.

"Show me what you've got," Bond says.

Q feels the urge to protest and run away, but pushes it away. Instead he picks up a pair of earmuffs with studied calm, puts them on, aims, and fires four rounds at the target. Bond pushes the button to bring it forward for inspection, and Q removes the earmuffs again. There are only four bullet holes on the board. When did Bond change his own target board for an empty one?

"Not too bad," Bond says, and it isn't. No bull's eyes, but each of the four shots would have been enough to disarm an opponent. "Your shots stray to the left though," he adds and sends the target board back. Then he takes a step closer, and Q instinctively straightens up even more than he already has. Bond's arms come around to rest against Q's own, gently changing his aim. "Here."

Bond is practically whispering into Q's ear, and it gives Q shivers. He can feel Bond's body pressed against his own from his shoulders down to his thighs, and it's doing cruel things to both his body and his mind. His head is flooded with the memory of Bond's tongue in his mouth, Bond's hand on his thigh, and visions of what could happen is this close proximity, of hands trailing down his body, fingers against his bare skin... For a basement room, it's suddenly very warm.

Q takes a deep breath and clears his head of the smut that seems to have taken up living quarters there, and fires. One, two, three, four new shots. One of Bond's arms disappears to press the button, but the other still rests on top of Q's. Bond's breath still rushes past his neck, just below his ear, tickling.

"Better," Bond says, and Q remembers to look at the target board. Four lethal wounds this time – and one bull's eye. Bond's hands slip back to Q's shoulders, but he doesn't step back.

"You could have been a field agent, Q," Bond whispers in his ear. "You have nerves of steel – who'd have thought?"

Then he steps back, and Q's body shivers at the sudden rush of cold air replacing that warm body. He wonders if this was all a test. The sudden presence of a blank target board, the exaggerated physical proximity – was Bond trying to see if Q's performance yesterday was just a fluke? Or was Q being paranoid now?

The silhouette on the target board is man-shaped. With all the focus it had taken to disregard the feeling of Bond's body pressed against his own, Q had barely noticed.

His head is beginning to spin again, just when he thought he wasn't affected.

"Shit."

He can't prevent the word from escaping. It sounds shaky, and angry, and pathetic.

_There goes the good impression._

Bond puts a hand on his shoulder again. Q doesn't dare turn around to look.

"You did fine, Q," Bond says, and there's no flirtation in his voice now. "You'll be fine."

Q doesn't know why it's so easy to believe the words when 007 says them. But it is.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

* * *

**A/N:** _So, I feel like there'll be a sniper waiting to shoot me down for writing this. I mean, I've been watching James Bond movies with my father and brother since I was a little kid and hid behind the sofa to sneak a peek. Years before I had any knowledge of fanfiction or slash, I had watched every single movie in order. I never, ever imagined that I would do something as seemingly insane as writing 007-slash. I mean, really. _

_And then I saw Skyfall. _

_Damn you, slash goggles. You never come off, do you?_

_I'm aware I'm not exactly adding anything new to the fandom with this, but hey, it got stuck in my head and I wanted to write it. It was also a bit of an experiment in form, as it is my first attempt at writing in present tense in English. (A lot trickier than it looks!) I keep second-guessing myself. But it was interesting._


	2. Q Is for Unknown Quantity

A/N: _So, I'm continuing this story! I chose to change the title of this fic in order for the title to represent the whole story and not just the first chapter. I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion._

Added Warnings for the rest of the story: _Mentions of the 7/7 bombings in London. Nothing that anyone would find insensitive, I hope, but since I'm aware that it might still be a very traumatic memory for some I thought I should mention it._

Disclaimer: _I don't know what belongs to the estate of Ian Fleming and what belongs to the Broccoli's, but nothing belongs to me._

* * *

_"Who, who are you really?  
And where are you going?  
Well, I've got nothing left to prove  
'cause I've got nothing left to lose  
See me bare my teeth for you  
Who, who are you?"_

- Mikky Ekko, _Who Are You, Really?_

**Q Is for Unknown Quantity**

He is used to being called 007, or "Mr Bond", or any of a number of aliases, but after years of going by those names he still thinks of himself as James. "007" is his title, and "Bond" is what his friends (if he can be said to have any) and co-workers call him in less official circumstances, but "James", although hardly anyone who stays in his life longer than a few days calls him that, is his name. James was the boy who walked into that priest hole, and James is the man who walked out again. James is the man who made his first kill as an MI6 agent in an abandoned restroom and had to drink half a bottle of whisky to make his hands stop shaking that evening, and James is the man who made his second kill from an armchair in an office, as cool and collected as he would be every time after that. James is the one who fell head over heels in love with Vesper Lynd and James is the one who cursed her name and returned to England and to M a little wiser, a little harder, and a little colder.

James is not what they call a people person. He does not get off on mingling and making small talk. He does not relax by "hanging out" with others. But he works in counter intelligence, and he wouldn't be half as good at his job as he demonstrably is if he weren't interested in people. He's curious by nature, about everyone he meets. He tries to figure out what motivates their actions, what makes them desperate, what makes them forget themselves, what makes them trust him, what makes them fear him. In short: what makes them tick.

When he finally came eye to eye with Silva on that Chinese island, he saw the same curiosity in the other man's eyes. He knew exactly what went through Silva's mind as he tried to rattle James, tried to pick at the scabs of James' mind and find his weaknesses: "How can I get under this man's skin? What will provoke a reaction? What will elicit an emotional response? _What makes him tick?_"

James doesn't believe Silva was anything but honest that day. The tale about the rats might not have come from Silva's own childhood, but that was never the point of the story anyway – he had _meant_ it. His anger and bitterness at M had not been an act. However, that didn't mean that his lines and actions hadn't been carefully calculated. James considers himself a good judge of character. No flamboyant move from Silva's side or evasive comment from M's was enough to make him underestimate Silva. He saw clearly that the man had been a great spy, before he had become a bargaining chip for MI6. Probably one of the best – but not better than James.

Silva underestimated him, that day. After all his talk about the two of them being alike – being the last two rats – he still thought James was enough of an amateur to fall for Silva's little games. He had assumed that the legendary womanizer would be thrown off his kilter by a little innuendo. Really, now. Two could play that game. The disappointment Silva couldn't keep from showing on his face when he realised he had failed to unnerve James, the brief flicker of honest surprise at James' retort – those were perhaps the only truly enjoyable memories James took with him from that entire mission. He had enjoyed upending Silva's game, with the same carefully subdued glee that Silva had displayed when he still thought he was winning.

Maybe Silva had a point. Maybe they weren't so different, he and James. The thought bothers James, because Silva is the reason M is dead, and he refuses to have anything in common with that man. But Silva is dead, and James is alive, and at the end of the day that's difference enough.

Different or not, though, James understood Silva. He had him figured out. He doesn't understand Q.

He thought he did, at first: one of the new breed, a young man with plenty of IQ and know-how, but no actual experience; someone who thought he was being smart when he made his witty little remarks about James's age and the pitiful state he was in at that point (oh yes, the oh-so-subtle battleship metaphor had not been lost on him).

Then he saw Q in his natural habitat, at the HQ, and what he saw there was something else: a man who already had all that skill in his spine and his fingers rather than in his head; someone who spoke in a soft, smooth voice that didn't fade, rise or waver even when things were falling apart around him; someone who seemed to have spent so much time with computers that he had become one, unflappable and detached, and at the same time someone who would risk his future career to help James and M – or perhaps to get back at the man who had hacked his systems. James can't be sure what Q's motives were. The man shows so little of what is going on inside his head.

And now he's seen Q in the field, and found that there is yet another side to him.

James suspects Q himself thinks that he didn't do a very good job, and that he's not handling the fact that he killed a mark very well, but James disagrees – even if he hasn't said so. Q's reaction is the same as James has seen in dozens of newly hatched field agents: he's upset, which tells James he's not pushing it away and refusing to deal with it, but he's also grounded and calm enough that it's obvious he's accepted that things like these are an occupational hazard and nothing Q is to blame for. James is impressed that Q managed to kill the man at all. He might have expected that Q wouldn't be entirely useless with a gun, considering he is the one who picks out and upgrades the weapons for all double-ohs, but that he's coldblooded enough to shoot a man down in the field came as something of a surprise.

Then there was the incident at the club. Q might not have had to act very much to become "Quentin" initially, but his conduct after he spotted the man who followed them was remarkable: the way he kept his head cold, the way he showed no sign of being uncomfortable when he was forced to nearly sit in James' lap, the way he played along when James kissed him, even kissed him back, and then not as much as mentioned it again – not even when James cornered him on the firing range.

So James' view of Q now has to incorporate this cold-headed field-agent-in-the-making as well as the cocky young man and the competent Quartermaster. Instead of coming any closer to pinning down who Q is, he has been forced to take a step backwards and try to take in an ever larger picture. Q is not the two-dimentional boffin or spotty youth James first wrote him off as. Q is complex and elusive. Bond can see why M – his M – picked him. He wonders if Q, too, is an orphan, a child prodigy, another promising young man for M to take under her wing. He'll never get the chance to ask her, now.

The next time James has an errand to Q-branch, he stands in the doorway for a while and watches Q buzz around the room talking to his underlings. If James wasn't seeing it with his own eyes, he would never believe that a man as young as Q, dressed the way Q dresses, with that floppy hair that falls into his face and that cup of earl grey forever in his hands, could command such respect and attention as Q does. Everyone in the room seems to defer to him as naturally as they did any of his older and more imposing predecessors, if not more so. The soft-voiced "yes, sirs" and "no, sirs" follow upon one another seemingly without end, accompanied by the constant click-clack of typing.

When he decides to make his presence known, James stalks right up to Q, who's talking to a freckle-faced underling. He stands a little bit too close, as is his habit with everyone, but he thinks it will be extra effective with Q. The young man seems to have a larger personal sphere than most – when he's not cuddling up against his colleagues in nightclub sofas, at least.

Q finishes his instructions to the woman as if he hasn't even noticed James' presence; then he straightens up and looks him in the eye, and says which such a stern voice that it reminds James of M:

"Yes, 007, was there anything you wanted?"

The part of James' brain that never stops flirting suggest the answer: "you". He hasn't forgotten Q's reaction to that kiss; it's just one more thing that makes Q interesting. James usually prefers women, but he wasn't lying when he made that quip about "first times" to Silva, and Q certainly fits James' type on all other accounts: mysterious, beautiful and with more cheek than what can possibly be good for him.

"Just admiring your leadership, Quartermaster."

"From such a short distance? Maybe we need to fit you up with spectacles for your next mission."

Q says that, but it doesn't escape James' notice that he hasn't backed away. James smiles. He thinks he notices the shadow a smirk on Q's face, too.

"M wants to talk to you," he says, getting back to business.

"And you're his message boy? That's funny, he usually sends Miss Moneypenny. Or Tanner."

"I offered."

"I'm sure you did."

There's something in the way Q delivers that line that makes it sound perfectly innocent and positively lewd at the same time. James' so impressed he can't come up with a fitting answer.

"Shall I escort you, sir?" he says instead, with exaggerated courtesy and his most disarming smile.

"I know the way, thank you."


	3. Encore

_"How did you get that way? I don't know  
You're screwed up and brilliant,  
Look like a million dollar man"_

- Lana del Rey, _Million Dollar Man_

**Encore**

It appears the reason Bond was sent to collect him is that M wanted to talk to both of them. There's a folder on his desk when Q walks in, turned towards the two empty chairs. M stands up.

"We've had some new information come through on the arms dealers," he says. "Combined with the information you retrieved for us in Reading, we finally have a lead on who might be at the head of this."

M points at the file, and Bond flips it open to the first page. Q sees the image of a man with a narrow but handsome face and grey hair.

"Meet Monsieur Michel Jeunet," M says.

Q tears the file from Bond's hands.

"_Jeunet_? Leading a ring of arms dealers?"

Bond looks at him.

"Do you know him?"

"He should," M says before Q gets a chance to reply. "Jeunet is also known as _Le Loup-garou_. He's one of the most accomplished hackers on the international arena. Something of a genius as far as I gather."

"And he chooses to call himself The Werewolf?" Bond asks.

"He lives up to it," Q says.

"One of your six people?"

"Definitely."

M looks slightly confused for half a second, but doesn't ask. He probably got the gist of the exchange.

"To our knowledge," he says, "the only one who has ever cracked one of Jeunet's own systems was a hacker called K."

"And who is that?" Bond asks, predictably.

"Me."

Bond smiles, in a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

"Of course. Out of curiosity, how many one-letter nicknames do you have?"

"Just the two," Q assures him and looks up from the file to address M. "I assume that's the reason I was called here?"

"Indeed," Mallory says and sits down. They follow suit. "Jeunet is a main speaker at an exclusive conference in Paris three weeks from now. We have intel that suggests a large shipment of illegal weapons will change hands at the same time, from our mark's organisation to a major international crime organisation. We don't know where in Paris, we don't know exactly when, we don't even know if this intel is entirely trustworthy. Our friends in Langley along with several of our colleagues on the continent are interested in stopping this trade from taking place. We want you to confirm the information we have and retrieve as much additional information as you can without leaving any traces. Jeunet is known to be suspicious to the point of paranoia. This deal is the first real chance we've had at getting at the leaders of this organisation. If Jeunet gets nervous and calls it off, God knows when we will get another chance like it.

"You'll be attending the conference as a potential investor and his PA, it will fit the age difference and draw more attention to you, 007, than to the Quartermaster. Your covers are not fully fleshed out yet, but I expect it won't take you long to correct that."

Q is usually anything but slow, so he feels like a complete idiot when he only now realises that M is suggesting that Q shouldn't just stand by a monitor in Vauxhall, but actually get out on the field. Again. Thankfully, Bond looks equally perplexed, or whatever passes for confusion on that granite face.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to send one of the girls from Q-branch? Keep the Quartermaster in this end with all his fancy toys?"

M gives Bond a bit of a glare and says:

"I've already told you Q is uniquely positioned to do this. The 'girls from Q-branch' as you call them are not only far below Q's competence and completely lacking field experience, they would also be counterproductive to your cover. Your primary objective is to retrieve the information without relying on traitors or informants in Jeunet's ranks. Should that prove impossible, the person closest to Jeunet is his PA, Marie Chabrier. But tread carefully," M says, looking at Bond. "In this case, it's not just the woman who is in danger of ending up dead."

Q thinks it is to Bond's credit that he doesn't even flinch at that rather harsh implication.

"Jeunet had one of his own bodyguards hanged from one of the balconies at Hotel Negresco in Nice a year ago because he didn't like the way the man looked at Chabrier. You cementing your ladies-man image by bringing along a pretty young girl as your PA won't help. Better to detract suspicion."

M doesn't develop that further, and he doesn't need to. They are all on the same page. Not for the first time in his life, Q is happy he's not prone to blushing.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Still, as they walk out of M's office Q must look a bit paler than usual because Bond puts a hand on his shoulder and says:

"You look like you've bitten into a lemon, Q. You should be excited. You get to come down from your tower and visit the real world again."

Q doesn't think that's something to get excited about, and he is not in the mood for humour.

"Not all little boys dreamt of becoming secret agents, you know," he tells Bond.

"I doubt you dreamt of becoming Quartermaster of MI6 either."

"No," Q concedes. "In fact, I think my plans were more along the lines of hacking every state-owned server and overthrowing the government by pressing a key."

It's just a slight change somewhere around Bond's eyes, but suddenly he knows he has Bond's full attention.

"Sounds like you were an angry young man."

"Maybe."

Q's already regretting letting the conversation turn in this direction.

"So what stopped you? Not any difficulty to pull it off, surely?"

It's hard to tell by his smile if Bond is actually complimenting him while mocking him, or if he's just mocking him outright. It's surprisingly frustrating.

"I'm touched by your faith in my abilities, 007. As a matter of fact, I don't think I could have pulled it off, if for no other reason than that even today the stability of the state does not rely _solely_ on computer systems."

"But you never tried," Bond deduces. "So you changed your mind then."

"I guess so."

"The wisdom of age?"

There's that joking tone again.

"More like the choice between a lifetime in prison with a snooker table and some DVD-boxes or a lifetime in a London flat with monthly payments and a job where I get to play with all the toys I'd ever wished for."

Q hopes Bond will grab the chance to call Q a child and thereby change the subject, but Bond disappoints him.

"Why were you being sent to prison?" he asks.

"I'm sure you've heard the rumours, 007. I hacked into MI5's so called secure systems."

Bond studies him for a moment.

"And?"

"And what? They were pretty pissed. They wanted to lock me away to rot. But apparently MI6 found the whole thing rather more amusing than they did, and M called me in for a talk and made me the offer I couldn't refuse."

M.

Q half-expects 007 to walk away at the mention of that woman, but he just keeps studying Q.

"You're not lying," he says.

Q scoffs.

"Thank you. No, I'm not."

"But you're hiding something," Bond continues.

"Oh? And what would that be?"

Bond looks at him in silence again.

Finally, he says: "I'm not sure yet."

"Well, tell me when you've figured it out," Q says, relieved to end the discussion but also a little bit amused, and begins to walk away.

"Q?" Bond calls after him, and Q turns around. "Why 'K'?"

Bond looks smug. So he thinks he's on to Q's name, does he? Q has to smile.

"Too much Kafka."

Q might be imagining it, but he thinks Bond's disappointment is actually visible.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

In his head, Q goes through the different preparations to be made before a field operation. It is something he has done many times, but now he puts himself in the role of field agent and that makes the old familiar train of thought feel new and awkward.

He has to create a character for himself. Nothing elaborate, not an entire novel; all he needs is a few memorised sentences of back-story, a convincing digital record in case Jeunet decides to look them up, and mannerisms that are close enough to his own that he won't have to act much but that fit the professional persona he's aiming for. Speaking of appearing professional – he looks at himself in the glass doors and sees the unruly hair, the cardigan and the hipster glasses – he might be a department head, but this is MI6, not the business world. No high-class businessman who dresses the way Bond does would employ a PA that dresses like Q. He needs new clothes.

There is a tailor on Savile Row that caters almost exclusively to MI6. The arrangement is expensive, and perhaps questionable from a security point of view, but useful enough to warrant it. The man who runs the shop, a Mr Trace, blithely accepts and keeps quiet about all their special demands – everything from including hidden pockets to replacing the bullet-hole riddled sleeve of an expensive suit that's only been worn once. Q has never been there but he knows where it is, and makes sure he gets an appointment.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He hasn't been measured for clothes since he graduated from Cambridge, and he found it an awkward experience then too. He turns and moves on the tailor's command, stretching out his arms and legs when asked, while the white-haired Mr Trace circles around him with a measuring tape and a small notebook and hums repeatedly.

"Yes, yes. I think we can do something quite nice. It's nice to get to work on a different silhouette. They're usually so much bulkier than you, your colleagues."

"I have more of a desk job, normally," Q says. He doesn't think it's giving away too much information – after all, it's probably obvious.

"So that's why I haven't seen you before," Mr Trace says with a smile that makes his face crinkle up like crêpe paper. "Good, that's good."

The old man starts rolling up the measuring tape. He must detect some confusion in Q's face, because he clarifies: "Usually when your company sends me new customers it means one of the old ones ... won't be coming back."

The smile doesn't quite reach his eyes this time. It's obvious to Q that Trace has a pretty good idea of what happens to those customers.

"Do you recognise all your customers?" Q asks when Mr Trace gestures for him to step down from the little podium.

"Oh, yes, of course! If I don't remember the face, I recognise the posture, the gait, the proportions – I would know one of my customers anywhere."

Q considers the security risk. He doubts Trace is the type to turn into a traitor – after all, he's had a few decades to do so, including the height of the cold war – but if someone found out that he works for them, extracted him and tortured him for information...

"You live above the shop, don't you? Would it be alright with you if I sent some people here to set up some extra security systems? For your safety."

The tailor smiles.

"Ah, of course, of course. But I will not take it off the price of your suits."

"Of course not," Q hurries to say, and feels as if he was just very rude and doesn't know quite how to apologise.

"They've been here before, you know, your people. Years ago. But I suppose it is all ... what do they call it, 'smart' technology now, eh? I suppose that's your desk job?"

Q is torn between the urge to be polite to this nice, harmless man by answering his question and the ingrained reflex to never divulge anything about his work. The tailor catches his hesitance.

"Ah, but we stray too far from the matter at hand. Let us look at some fabrics. What will you need for your trip?"

Q explains that he will need to look like he's not extremely wealthy himself, but the employee of someone who is, and does an estimate of what he will need (two suits and a tuxedo).

"You'll be travelling with Mr Bond, then," Mr Trace says. This time he doesn't put it as a question, and Q is grateful because he doesn't want to answer.

"I only assume because he is the only one of you who has been in here recently," Trace explains. "He already has several of my creations of course, so he only ordered one. We picked out this." Trace gestures at a light grey fabric, and then takes a couple of steps and picks out a darker shade of the same colour. "How about this?"


	4. Travelling Companions

_"You're only a child  
with the mind of a senile man  
You're only a young thing  
about to sleep with a sea of men  
Just hanging around  
Wearing something from God knows where  
Just having a ball  
Making all of the thin cards fall"_

- Rufus Wainwright, _Out of the Game_

**Travelling Companions**

James is supposed to meet Q at St Pancras to take the train to Paris (it seemed Eve was serious when she said Q was scared of flying – unless MI6 had simply decided it was time to go green). He assumed Q would be there before him, because Q has never struck him as the type to be late, but he wonders for a moment when he can't find the younger man anywhere. And then James sees him, right under his nose, sitting on a bench just ahead. It's the way Q is hunched over his tablet that makes James recognise him – everything else looks different. He is wearing a slate-coloured three-piece suit with a white shirt and green tie, and newly polished black shoes. The glasses have been swapped for a pair with more discreet frames, and his hair is not quite meticulous but it has been brushed back from his face. He looks ten years older than he normally does, which, James realises, probably means he looks his age.

"Who are you, and what have you done to my computer geek?"

Q looks up.

"I really don't think 'computer geek' is the preferred term anymore," he says, deadpan, as if he knew James was standing there. Then suddenly there's a tiny flicker of insecurity in his eyes as James studies him. "I look ridiculous, don't I?" he asks. "I feel like a monkey in a suit. Or more like a walking stick, maybe."

James has to bite back his standard answer to that question – "You look perfect" – because although it's true, it's hardly the right tone to take with the Quartermaster.

"The day has yet to come when anyone looks ridiculous in a suit from Mr Trace," he says instead, a statement that is equally true. "You look good. Shall we catch our train?"

Q nods and puts away the tablet. When he stands up the transformation is even more stunning than it was when he sat down. Mr Trace has outdone himself. The suit is a work of art, and Q is a work of art _in_ that suit. As they grab their negligible luggage and make their way to the platform, people actually turn their heads to look at Q (and at James, but he is used to that, when he makes an effort). Q doesn't notice, but James does, and he feels irrationally proud of his Quartermaster.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

On the train, they discuss the mission, talking in circles around it in case anyone is listening. Q tells James about what they might see at the conference and how to talk about it to the people there in a way that makes it sound like James knows anything about it. As he goes on, Q underestimates James' knowledge about telecommunication and computer programming by quite a bit, but James doesn't correct him. It's nice to listen to Q's soft, melodic voice while the English landscape rushes by outside the window, soon to be replaced by the tunnel wall. When that happens, Q falls silent and looks away from the window, training his eyes on the table between them. James wonders if he's claustrophobic; that would explain the fear of flying as well. Trains are not much different of course, but they do allow you to escape the feeling that there's nowhere to go if something happens. He wonders if Q takes the tube. He wonders if Q's reaction is to do with what James found in his file.

James turns his eyes towards Q when the outside view is gone, and it's only now that the sense of déjà-vu strikes him: the train; the mission on the continent to take down a man who supplies terrorist organisations with resources; the brunette seated opposite James with a sharp intellect, sharp wit and sharp beauty, who happens to be unaccustomed to fieldwork.

It's been a long time since thoughts of Vesper caught James off guard, and longer still since he thought about that first meeting of theirs, before everything went wrong. He can see her sitting there in the chair in front of him, with that little smirk on her lips, insolence and flirtation sparkling in her eyes. He's surprised by how it affects him: the pressure that settles over his chest, the way breathing suddenly becomes difficult, as if he was doing bench press and someone had added extra weights when he wasn't looking.

Q saves him by looking up and addressing him.

"Mr McEwan? Is there something wrong?"

Q, professional as always, uses James' alias already, and despite the words and the hint of concern in the blue green eyes directed at James, Q's voice is stern and down-to-business. While that tone reminds James of a woman, that woman is not Vesper. The pressure lifts from his chest. The sudden wave of anger, pain and betrayal crashes back down to the depths from which it rose, and the dull, familiar, slow burning grief that James has carried around inside him for months now resumes its place.

"Nothing. My mind wandered."

Q gives him a quizzical look, but doesn't ask.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

When they arrive in Paris, they check into the hotel where the conference is being held. One of their French contacts infiltrated the hotel staff two weeks earlier and has informed them that Jeunet and Chabrier are staying in the most exclusive suite. James and Q are given a two-bedroom suite. The bathroom is shared, which is not really up to par with the luxurious image of the place, but then again this is not America: the building is old and the rooms are small. The hallway between the two bedrooms doubles as some kind of lounge or living room area, with two armchairs and a music system. Q wordlessly picks one of the rooms, leaving James to settle for the other one. It doesn't bother him – he's seen enough hotel rooms of all sizes, shapes and styles not to care anymore.

As James drops his bag on the bed Q walks in without knocking, holding his smartphone in front of him like a compass as he walks around the room. He doesn't even look up at James. His hair has begun to rebel against whatever styling attempts Q made earlier in the day, and is falling down over his eyes again.

"Q? What are you doing?"

"Sweeping the suite for bugs."

James has to smile.

"With that?"

"I've made a few modifications."

That's probably quite an understatement, James thinks.

"I'm sure. You know, Henri has already told us that the room would be clear."

Q looks up, finally.

"Nevertheless, I wanted to make sure."

"Don't you trust our French colleagues, Q?"

"It's nothing against them. I trust no one as much as I trust myself. If I left bug in here because I just took someone else's word for it, we could both be dead before tomorrow."

James can tell by the sharp edge in Q's voice that the Quartermaster considers this a real and probably slightly frightening possibility. Q pockets the phone, either because he's satisfied with the result of his search or because he's becoming uncomfortable.

"And here I thought you might just be looking for a reason to waltz into my room without knocking," James says, turning the charm up a few notches just to change Q's mood. "Were you hoping to catch me changing?"

A brief pause while Q's mouth opens and closes again is the only sign of embarrassment, but from Q it's as good as a blush and a stutter.

"Really 007. You don't have anything I haven't seen before."

James takes of his jacket and begins to remove his cufflinks, partly because he actually does mean to change before dinner, partly to see how far he can get before Q caves in and stops sounding so bloody cool.

"Human bodies are works of art, Q," he says. "You can't say that just because you've seen one painting you've seen them all."

Q raises an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitches upwards. It looks like a challenge – or the acceptance of a challenge, maybe.

"I prefer my art a bit more on the modern side," he says, the cheeky little imp, and there's a quality in his voice now that wasn't there a minute ago, something reminiscent of warm honey. For a moment, it makes James consider actually trying to win Q over instead of just teasing. He puts the cufflinks on the bedside table and moves on to his shirt buttons.

"This from the man who chose to meet in front of a Turner?"

James is smiling now, and Q smiles back; a soft smile that doesn't show any teeth but still reaches his eyes. James is glad he at least seems to have shaken all thoughts of imminent death from the younger man's mind.

"Who says that was my choice?" Q replies.

"Well, if you insist on standing there I will have to assume your appreciation for the classics is greater than you claim. After all, they didn't seem to leave you entirely cold in that club in Reading."

It's as if Q only now realises that James is undressing. He doesn't blush, but there's a distinct expression of mortification on his face as he scampers out of the room, leaving a chuckling James behind him. He doesn't close the door, and James can't be bothered to do it either.


	5. City of Romance and Revolution

"_I remember you well  
at the Chelsea Hotel.  
You were famous,  
your heart was a legend."_

– Leonard Cohen, _Chelsea Hotel no. 2_

**City of Romance and Revolution**

Dinner is served in the small but extravagant hotel restaurant, where chandeliers hang from the painted ceiling. The entire hotel has been reserved for the conference, so the room is full of businessmen in crisp suits. Almost each and every one of them has a beautiful woman standing next to them. Q looks around for any other male PA's or secretaries. He counts to five, but two of them have female bosses and a third winks at him. The other two seem to be accompanying married couples. Q wonders if business is always such a meat-market in these circles, or if it's just when they're away at a place like this. He hopes it's the latter – that's bad enough.

With a palm on Q's lower back, Bond steers him towards the table where Jeunet and Chabrier sit.

"Are these seats taken?" Bond asks, smooth as finely aged whiskey, and just like that they are introducing themselves to their marks.

Q is "Quentin" again for the weekend (which certainly wasn't his idea, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Bond has bribed someone, or just flirted his way past the regulations, neither would be much of a surprise, really) and he has gained the less conspicuous surname of Samuels.

He smiles, nods, and lets Bond do most of the talking. He listens for any mention of what technological equipment Jeunet has brought with him, and watches the man to see if he seems to be carrying any on his person; much like he expects Bond is trying to gauge if, or rather where and what, Jeunet's gorilla-like bodyguard is carrying weapons. Still, Q can't help thinking that he isn't doing anything he couldn't have done from his keyboard in Vauxhall – where he would have the added comfort of not having to wonder if the people with guns in the room outnumbered the people without. He doesn't belong here, he feels sure he must stick out like a sore thumb. He has no experience talking to the kind of people who are sat around this table, and he has no real experience of fieldwork. Thankfully, it suits his cover to stay withdrawn and quiet and hide behind Bond's charming, outgoing persona, but it's frustrating all the same. As the evening wears on, he catches himself tapping his fingers against the table, longing for the feeling and sound of keys.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Night has already fallen when Q watches across the room as Bond approaches Marie Chabrier at the bar. The smile he gives her is enough to dazzle half the room, and Q hopes Bond has made sure that Jeunet is not around. But of course, Jeunet is nowhere to be seen. After all, this is James Bond, having drinks with a beautiful woman – he knows what he's doing. Q sips his watered-down wine and watches the game play out. If anyone catches him looking, it can always be explained away as jealousy. In a way, it is: the jealousy of a misplaced man watching someone who is so clearly in their element.

When they retire to their rooms, all that has been established is that Jeunet carries both a tablet and a smartphone on his person, and although he rarely looked at it, Q could tell that he was fingering the phone in his pocket every now and then all evening. But was that a sign that he expected a phonecall (from, say, presumptive buyers) or just the ordinary phone-withdrawal of every other twentyfirst-century-person? It's too soon to tell. Q also suspects that Jeunet has at least one laptop in his suite. Alas, that too has to remain a guess: Q has tried to sneak in but the doors were locked, and while he knows how to fool an ordinary hotel card-lock, this one had clearly been improved by Jeunet and Q needs a bit more time to figure out how. Q is not sure if Bond has already attempted to charm his way into the room, but if so, he has met no more success than Q on that front.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Bond disappears into his room with a quick "Good night, Q" as soon as they have shared their results and observations, but Q is still awake in the small hours of the night. He sits bolt upright in his bed, tapping away at his laptop.

Lost in his work, he reaches blindly for the glass of water he's put on the bedside table, but manages to knock over the lamp instead. It falls to the floor, pulling the cord out of its socket as it tumbles, plunging the room into darkness but for the blue sheen from the computer screen. Q curses and reaches down to fix it, praying the bulb hasn't been broken.

He puts the lamp back on the table and switches it on, only to nearly knock it over again in shock when he sees Bond standing by the foot of his bed, wearing nothing but pants and aiming a gun at him.

"Q," Bond says and lowers the gun, allowing Q's pulse to settle down a little.

"007. What the bloody hell?"

Bond smiles a bit at his coarseness.

"I heard someone knocking the furniture over and thought you were being attacked. What are you doing? Do you know what time it is? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"I didn't think I'd live long enough to hear James Bond sounding like a concerned parent! I didn't know you had it in you. Then again, the gun counteracts that impression, so you're not hopelessly lost yet."

Bond doesn't seem to appreciate the humour, but then neither would Q if he'd been woken up at this time of night.

"You said there was nothing more you could do tonight, so you're not working," Bond points out.

"I am, just not on this case. Look, there are no intruders here, so you can go back to your bed."

_Because your naked chest is distracting_, Q thinks but doesn't say.

"You can't sleep, can you?"

There's a softer tone to Bond's voice now, and Q has to look down at the laptop when the agent takes a step closer.

"No," he admits. "I can't. Because even though I'm in no apparent danger and I'm not doing anything remotely useful here, I still have enough adrenaline in my system to keep a small elephant up all night. I don't know how you handle it."

Bond smiles.

"I think you know exactly how I handle it, or you're not as smart as you pretend to be."

"No comments," Q mutters.

"You have to sleep, Q. Take a pill, meditate, do what you like to take the edge off, but you won't be much use to anyone if you stay up all night, you know that."

"I think I know my limits better than you, 007."

"If you say so, Quartermaster."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

When Bond has left, Q sighs and puts away the laptop. Bond is right, he really ought to find a way to take the edge off and go to sleep.

In other circumstances, he would feel ashamed of what he does next, but right now he is too tired to. He turns the lights off and thinks of how it felt to stand pressed against Bond's body at the shooting range; the tingle that went down his spine at the proximity, the warmth of the body behind him. He thinks of how that body looked just a moment ago: the way the shadows in the dark room added definition to the muscles on that sculpted torso, the way those blue eyes shone in the blue light from Q's computer. Q brings himself off to thoughts of one of the agents under his watch, and he should be ashamed, he should feel guilty, but he can't be bothered to care. And besides, it works – he's asleep within minutes.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The following day brings more of the same – sitting around, watching, listening, and studying Bond's technique as he gets close to both Jeunet and Chabrier.

By lunchtime, Bond has managed to convince Jeunet that he's interested in investing in Jeunet's business – the slightly-more-legal-than arms-dealing one, that is – and Jeunet has dragged him away into a private room to discuss plans. Q can hear the conversation through his earpiece, which during this slow part of the mission has been set to only transmit between him and Bond, not to or from HQ. Bond gets Jeunet to start talking tech by complaining about the tablet he uses, saying that he's begun to wish he had stuck to his laptop, and asking for Jeunet's advice. Q sits on a sofa in the hotel lounge pretending to watch BBC News on his tablet and gets the full list of what technology Jeunet uses and what he's brought with him. He crosses his fingers and hopes Jeunet will offer Bond to have a look at the things, but he's not surprised to be disappointed. Q wouldn't let anyone get their hands on his own tech, and he doubts Jeunet feels differently.

Q roams through all the wifi-networks he can find to see if he can locate any of Jeunet's devices, when the Frenchman changes the subject.

"So," he says, "what do you think about my Marie?"

Q freezes, remembering M's warning. The conversation next door suddenly has his full attention.

"She seems like a remarkable assistant."

Q is almost surprised to hear Bond's voice so warm, yet entirely devoid of innuendo when speaking of a woman. It's not something you hear every day. It's the way he used to sound when he spoke of the late M, Q recalls – even when he cursed her. These days, he doesn't speak of her at all.

Jeunet is still suspicious, though.

"And a remarkable woman?" he asks.

"I'm sure."

There's a creak of leather, and Q imagines Jeunet leaning forward, or perhaps even getting up from his chair.

"I saw you talking to her yesterday. You looked ... quite intimate."

"We did?" Bond sounds surprised.

"She was flirting with you."

"We only talked about work. She began talking about you, that's when she lit up."

"Do you really expect me to believe that, Mr McEwan? A beautiful woman like that smiles and flirts with you, and you do not respond in turn? Not even the British are so cold."

Q can practically feel Jeunet slipping out of their grasp. Well, he'll be damned if he'll let the mission go to hell in a hand basket while he sits and twiddles his thumbs. He picks up his tablet and looks at it as if he just got a message – it's a simple trick, but effective every time – and walks up to the door, knocks and pokes his head through the door.

"Sir? I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but there's an urgent message for you."

Bond looks at Jeunet, who makes a gesture that seems to mean 'whatever'. Q walks up to Bond's side, and stands just a few inches too close. It's a fine line he's treading, trying to be obvious without being obvious. He hands Bond the tablet where it now says: "pretend like you are reading an important business deal", and lets their fingers touch as he does. Bond looks up at him, and the corner of his mouth twitches slightly, as if he is holding back a smile. Q can't help but think that Bond is a master at this. Bond pretends to study the tablet for a while. Q pretends to study Bond, then glances briefly at Jeunet as if he just remembered that they're not alone, and looks down in a carefully faked gesture of hidden embarrassment.

"Tell Hammond he's crazy if he thinks I'll agree to this," Bond says and hands back the tablet. "If these are the terms he wants, he'll have to pay at least £ 50 000 more."

Their fingers meet again, and Q says, with a studied chill in his voice as if he's trying to hide the double entendre:

"Is there anything else you want me to do, sir?"

Their eyes meet, and the twitch of Bond's lips returns, more telling this time.

"Maybe later."

Compared to the husky tones Q knows Bond is capable of (he has a brief moment to think that his job is insane, that he would naturally learn things like that about his colleagues) his tone now is practically innocent. It's still enough to send shivers down Q's spine right down to his groin, pretend or not. He takes the tablet, croaks out a "Very well, sir," that doesn't sound as strained as he expects it to, and leaves the room with heated cheeks.

Q walks calmly out of the room, but his heart is in his throat, pumping adrenaline through his body. In his ear, he hears how Jeunet changes the subject, without mentioning either Q or Chabrier. Q isn't sure that they have convinced the man entirely, but he seems to be off the war-path at least, and relief floods Q's mind.

He goes back to working on the lock to Jeunet's room, paying only limited attention to the rest of Bond and Jeunet's conversation.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q is getting his coffee – he'd have tea, but the liquid they call tea here is atrocious – when Bond walks up behind, puts one hand on Q's waist and whispers in his ear:

"You know exactly what you're doing, don't you?"

Q shivers, and quickly pushes away the memory of his activities the night before.

"Always, Mr McEwan," he says and sips his coffee. "Always."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He can't access Jeunet's devices. During a lecture of some sort after lunch, Q makes another attempt at unlocking Jeunet's door. He stands there for half an hour, trying to hack his way past an increasingly impressive piece of code, before he hears people coming up the stairs and has to abort and escape to his own room. It's Friday, the day is passing fast, and by Saturday night it might be too late to stop the trade. Q wonders what the weapons will be used for. He wonders if there are bombs in Jeunet's arsenal.

Q slams his hand into the wall with a scream of frustration. He leans his forehead against the wall and takes a couple of deep breaths. He has to get away for a moment; he has to think about something else, anything but that. To the earpiece, he says – feeling a bit guilty for having screamed into Bond's ear without warning – "I'm going out for a while," and then he leaves the hotel.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Bond finds him. He should probably have expected that.

Q stands by the riverside, leaning on a railing. The sky is gray and droplets of water fall from the clouds at random intervals. Q finds the feeling of cold rain and chilly breeze against his face soothing. Bond walks up beside him and doesn't say anything for the longest time.

"Fieldwork isn't for everyone," Q says when the silence is beginning to get uncomfortable. "Eve says you told her that. I never actually needed to be told."

He doesn't turn around to look at Bond, but from the corner of his eye he can see that the man is smiling, a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

"Don't worry Q, we'll have you back in your little cage in Vauxhall soon enough. You'll be reunited with your computers and your cardigans before you know it."

Q scoffs.

"It might feel like a cage to you, 007, but to me it's the place where I can see from five angles instead of one, gather information about anything I see in a matter of seconds, and actually affect events taking place and change the outcome of a mission. This ... this is the cage."

"You're changing the outcome of this mission, Q," Bond says. Q could swear that he actually means it.

"I'm _winging_ it. When I improvise in Q-branch it's because I know what I'm doing well enough that I'm capable of adapting. Here it's all just _guesswork_."

"I thought you said you always know what you're doing."

At that, Q can't help but to turn around and glare at Bond. Bond seems to get the hint.

"Well, you're doing it brilliantly," he says in an almost apologetic tone.

"I don't _do_ guesswork, 007," Q replies, and even he can hear the contempt dripping from his voice as he speaks. "I can't abide with it. I don't 'take a step back and see how things go'. If I fail in this operation, those weapons will make it into the wrong hands and they will be used to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, and it will be _my_ fault."

"No, it won't."

"Don't patronise me, Bond," he spits out and looks down into the river.

"I'm not. I'm reminding you that this entire operation does not come down to your performance. You might be a genius, but I've been doing this since before there was a World Wide Web for you to play with."

"You haven't been a double-oh for _that _long," Q says, but also notes that Bond differentiates between the internet and the web, indicating that Q has underestimated him again.

"Not all field agents are double-ohs," Bond replies, "and it's not your fault."

Q can tell that Bond is studying him, and it makes the hairs on his neck stand on end.

"I read your file," Bond says, and Q's stomach drops.

"Did you, now? I wasn't aware you had the security clearance for that."

"I don't."

"So when did you become a world class hacker? Or am I to assume that you looked at it from M's computer?"

_That's it,_ he thinks._ Focus on the practicalities. Don't think about the implications._

"I did," Bond admits.

"I'm sure he'll be interested in hearing that."

"I don't think you'll tell him."

"I won't?"

"She had things wiped from that file, didn't she?" is Bond's only reply. He's not smiling anymore.

Q feels that cold, familiar hand of dread and guilt – soul-crushing guilt – close around his heart. He can't even answer to point out that they've all had things wiped from their various files and records at one point or another.

"MI5 didn't recruit you," Bond continues when it's clear that he won't get an answer. "We might joke about them, but they're not so full of themselves that they would turn down that chance. Unless it was personal. Unless you didn't just break into their system."

He pauses again, as if he wants Q to chime in, to tell him the story in his own words.

"Don't," Q says. It comes out a whimper. He's not sure Bond even hears it.

"My first guess has to be that you sold their information. But M wouldn't have hired someone who had sold information of national importance. Not unless she had a guarantee that you'd never do it again. Something stronger than the promise of a flat and a good salary. Something stronger than gratitude. Something like guilt. The guilt of someone who hacked into MI5 in June 2005 and joined MI6 in early September."

It's getting harder to breathe. Q hopes he won't begin to cry. He looks down into the dark gray waters of the Seine and considers how little he would need to lean forward to fall in, fall in and sink below the surface, never to return.

"I didn't sell information," he says. This much, at least, is both true and in his favour. "I destroyed it. I was... I was contacted by some people in an anarchist movement, nothing terrorist related. They offered me a fair amount of money to have certain things wiped out of MI5's records of ongoing investigations. It fitted my political inclinations at the time. In order to make the data loss less easy to place, or trace, I went into other similar records, corrupting information, wiping entire files. Including, as one MI5 operative made sure to tell me, the ongoing investigation of a London terrorist cell."

Q reminds himself to breathe, deep, regular breaths. Stiff upper lip. He can do this.

"There was no such investigation," Bond protests.

"Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? Can't let the nation know that one little hacker can compromise national security. I doubt they would have told _me_ the extent of damage I caused, but there was a lot of anger going around, and I think the man who told me probably ignored orders just to see me squirm. To put the blame on someone who was still alive, someone he could kick and spit in the face."

Q can see in Bond's face that he wants to know if Q means that literally or figuratively, but for whatever reason, the man doesn't ask.

"How did they find you so quickly?" he asks instead. "I can't imagine you left much of a trail, even eight years ago."

Q has to let out a laugh, even if it sounds more like a death-rattle escaping his lungs.

"Ironically enough, all the heightened security around the country led to my contact with the anarchists getting arrested by the local police for something quite unrelated, and apparently he sold me out the moment they brought him in. He hoped it was going to help him get away easier. It didn't. No one wanted to acknowledge that it had happened, that I even existed. So instead of having me arrested for what I'd done, enough drugs were planted in my flat that I was going to go away for a very long time. I didn't protest. It felt like the least I deserved. When M turned up, I refused the offer at first. But she wouldn't let me. She told me that as stupid as I had been, letting myself be locked up in a cell because of some misjudged idea about penance would be even more stupid. She told me that she had decades of experience in counter intelligence, and that it was highly doubtful that MI5 would have had enough information to prevent the attacks either way. It wasn't the sort of operation that leaves much of a trail; homemade bombs and homemade terrorists. She said: 'What kind of redemption do you expect to find in a prison cell? Now that you've seen what kind of damage you can do, wouldn't it be better to help us stop anyone who tries to do the same? There are people out there who work for scarier people than a bunch of Yorkshire anarchists, you know.'"

Bond stands silent beside him. This is the forbidden subject: talking about M. Bond's M. Q's M.

"She saved me," he adds. He doesn't know why he's telling Bond any of this, why he didn't just tell Bond to go to hell and keep his nose out of Q's business, but he's started telling the story now and he might as well finish it. "I was ... "

_I was going to kill myself. I already had it all planned out when she turned up._

"My father was going to visit me later that day. I was going to tell him what had happened. What I had done. So that he would understand."

_So that he wouldn't think it had anything to do with him, or that there was anything he could have done_.

"Instead I told him that the police had made a mistake, which was what he had believed all along anyway, and that I was going to be set free and compensated. All because she looked at me with those steely eyes and told me that it wasn't my fault like she was giving me an order."

He takes a shaky breath. He focuses on the feeling of cold air against his skin, trying to keep himself in the present instead of being flooded by the emotions of the past. He's never told anyone this much – not even M herself. _Too late now_.

"She saved me. And I didn't manage to save her."


	6. A Piece of the Puzzle

_"It isn't that hard, boy, to like you or love you  
I'd follow you down, down, down  
You're unbelievable"_

- Lana del Rey, _Million Dollar Man_

**A Piece of the Puzzle**

There's a far off look in Q's eyes when he tells the story in his own words, filling in the blanks in James' theory, and James can't help but to hang on his every word. This is more than just a major key to the puzzle that is Q. Operatives don't often have heart-to-hearts with their colleagues, not if they've learnt their lessons, and certainly never about this touchy subject: what it was that had prompted them into service of their – or worse, someone else's – country. Sure, many of the agents at MI6 have entirely uninteresting backgrounds that are open secrets. Those are the men and women who were recruited at the top universities, newly spotted talents or just old blood; bright young things on their way up; just the way things have worked for generation upon generation in the Secret Service. But then there are those with stories like Bond's, or Q's, and that is why you don't ask. Because it reveals too much about a person. James has been wondering for a long time what it takes to get Q to drop that calm, smooth tone of voice he always uses, what it would take to make that voice stutter and break. Now he knows.

When Q starts talking about M, James thinks he has his answer as to why Q was so quick to help during the Skyfall-incident. Q is not an orphan, he learns, but he owed M just as much as James did. Call it narcissism, but when Q looks out over the water and says, with the voice of a lost child: "and I didn't manage to save her," James can't tear his eyes away. And when Q leans down towards the railing as if he's about to bury his head in his hands, James finds himself gently turning the young man around and kissing him.

It's a kiss initiated for all the wrong reasons. It's not part of their cover, because by no stretch of imagination is that required right now; it's not an expression of pure physical desire, even though that is there the moment James feels Q's lips part in surprise under his own; and it's certainly not love, because James doesn't kiss people out of love. Not anymore. But it is an act brought on by loneliness, and grief, and a _need_ that has nothing to do with the body – and that is close enough. It's _too _close. It doesn't help that Q's mouth feels far more familiar than it should after just one kiss.

And yet, it's Q who breaks it off: for a second it seems as if he's about to step into James' arms, deepening the kiss, but then he changes direction and takes a short step back instead and the world comes back into focus. Neither of them speaks for a long time. Finally, Q clears his throat and says: "It's probably time to head back." So they do. They walk back, and they discuss the operation, and Q's voice quickly reverts to its usual polished tones. They both manage to act like nothing happened just as easily as they did after the incident in Reading, even though that was a necessity and this was... unprofessional. But then again, James is no stranger to unprofessional conduct, and he's not quite done figuring Q out yet, either.


	7. Adrenaline

_"If you don't feel the way I do it don't matter  
'Cause I'll never know how you feel  
But if you do then sure I'll be flattered  
In my head it's all different anyhow"_

- Johnossi,_ Summerbreeze_

**Adrenaline**

As they begin to walk back to the hotel, Q feels slightly shaken. Partly from the old wounds that have been so unexpectedly ripped open, partly from the equally unexpected kiss that followed. However, Bond acts as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened between them, asks no more questions about Q's past, nor attempts to tell Q how nothing is his fault or that everything will be fine, and after a while Q finds this calms him down. Gradually, he relaxes, until he feels better than he has in days, maybe longer.

He likes that they don't have to talk about it – any of it. He's tired of the people in Q-branch who assume that because he looks or dresses a certain way he's comfortable discussing his personal thoughts, feelings and relationships. He was raised by his father and spent his formative years behind a screen, for God's sake. He's barely comfortable talking about _anything_ other than his job with other people. When it comes to his past, he would have thought it impossible even for someone as manipulative as Bond to make him reveal as much about it as he just has; but Bond had already read his file and begun to form his own conclusions, and if there's anything Q dislikes more than talking about himself it's people getting the wrong idea about him – especially if the idea they get is that he could ever be a traitor. Maybe there was a time when he could have gone down that road, but he was another man then, with another name. Now he's Q, and Q is as loyal to MI6 and to England as James Bond is. Why it is so important for him that Bond knows this, Q has no idea, but it is.

When it comes to the kiss, on the other hand, Q still wonders about that. It was so gentle, almost ... sentimental. That's certainly not a word he'd usually think about in connection with 007. Clearly, though, they don't have to discuss that either; it was what it was, it doesn't have to mean anything. Q likes it. For a second he wonders if he can get more consequence-free kisses from Bond – or perhaps even more than that. Q is surprised at how tantalising he finds the thought.

He remembers that, when they first met, he thought Bond looked haggard and worn-down. He still does, occasionally. Anyone outside MI6 would laugh at the idea of calling Bond old. They probably wouldn't call him young, either, but he's strong, sharp, and ridiculously fit – a man in his prime, people might say. But MI6 is a cruel mistress, who chews up her servants quicker than most and spits them out in bits and pieces years, or even decades, before any regular retirement – if they survive long enough for that. Q wonders if perhaps Bond would prefer to die in the field, all things considered – to go out like M. But where M got to take her last breath in the arms of her favourite son, Q strongly suspects Bond will die alone or surrounded by strangers. Either way, Q regards Bond through the eyes of an MI6 employee, and what he sees is a man who is slowly being worn down, inside and out: a man who is already living on borrowed time. Q should stay away from him. But there's something about Bond – he's good looking but not stunning, elegant but not exceptionally so, and yet he has this almost hypnotic quality about him. _Like a tiger_, Q thinks. _It's pretty, it's elegant, but above all it is a creature that could kill you without even breaking a sweat if it wanted to – and that's why you can't look away._

When they start talking again, just before the silence has had time to turn awkward, they discuss their progress with the operation.

"I'm not having any luck with Jeunet's door," Q says.

"So I gathered."

"I feel bad about asking you to flirt your way in when Jeunet has already expressed his suspicions about you and Chabrier."

"You're not jealous, are you, Q?" Bond says with a teasing smile, as if he hadn't had his tongue in Q's mouth mere minutes ago.

"I'm afraid someone will end up dead," Q points out.

"I've done this before."

"Yes, I know. That's why I'm afraid someone will end up dead."

Bond tuts softly at him, smiling.

"Oh ye of little faith. Don't you know you managed to convince Jeunet that I'm quite uninterested in Chabrier, yesterday?"

Q really doesn't want to think about the thrill of his pretend-flirting with Bond yesterday while he's still trying to forget how tempting it had been to just stay by the riverside in Bond's arms and not care about ghosts of the past, the present or the future.

"No, I don't know that. That he let the matter drop doesn't mean he's convinced you're entirely harmless."

"Well no, I'd be a bit insulted if he thought I'm entirely harmless."

"How far have you got?" Q asks, ignoring the comment.

Bond raises an eyebrow, but for once chooses not to go the obvious route of double entendre.

"I know that she's scared of him – which is better than if she had loved him. She mentioned the bodyguard that he killed in Nice when she tried to stop me from flirting with her. I'm fairly certain she's been looking for a way to get out ever since."

"Can we offer that to her, then?"

Bond is silent for a moment, then he says:

"We can offer it."

Offer, but not give, is what he means. Q remembers Bond's track record – the bodies of dead women left around the world – and could kick himself for sounding so naive.

"What else can we do?" he asks.

"I have an idea," Bond admits. "One that doesn't depend on her talking to us – only on her keeping quiet."

He goes on to explain what he's planned, and they work out the details together.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Afternoon is turning into evening as they arrive back at the hotel. Jeunet is supposed to hold his lecture less than an hour later, and if the plan is to work, Bond should attend. He needs to make Jeunet agree to another meeting the next day (allegedly to discuss "Mr McEwan's" business proposition) and showing an interest in Jeunet's business will help their credibility as well as, hopefully, make Jeunet more predisposed to say yes.

The corridor outside their suite is empty, the other guests either at dinner or getting ready for Jeunet's speech. Q is a bit miffed when he realises he's missed dinner and wonders if he has something to eat in his room. He doesn't think so.

"You don't happen to have any protein bars or anything equally silly but edible in your room or on your person, do you?" he asks Bond while he picks the hotel key card out of his pocket. He doesn't really expect a positive answer, but it's the kind of thing a man like Bond might keep in his luggage and damn it, he's hungry.

Bond doesn't reply at all, however. He just grabs Q around the waist and spins him around, slamming his back against the door to their suite. Q's basic training is about to kick in when, from the corner of his eye, he sees Jeunet's door opening.

Bond whispers: "We're being watched" before he kisses Q for the second time that afternoon. If Q didn't know better, he would begin to suspect that Bond arranges these things just in order to kiss Q – after all, the idea doesn't sound entirely as unreasonable now as it did a few hours ago. But this time Bond definitely has an excuse for pulling him close, and Q has an excuse for putting a hand behind Bond's neck. He doesn't has quite as much of an excuse for putting his other hand down the front of Bond's trousers, but Q likes to think of that as comeback for Bond's increasing habit of getting intimate without giving Q due warning. The slight flinch this causes is a reward in and of itself.

Q is thrown back to that club in Reading. The similarities between that situation and this one are striking; the danger, the game, the intimacy, the pumping of adrenaline, the hyperawareness and the unexpected flare of desire. It's what Q imagines a near-overdose would be like. His nostrils are filled with the smell of Bond's after shave. He doesn't particularly like the scent, but it's strong enough to go to his head anyway. He feels the soft fabric of Bond's pants under his fingers – and the hardness underneath. He wonders if it's caused by him or by the danger of their situation. Considering Bond's usual tastes he'd say the latter, or at the very least both – after all, Bond getting off on danger would explain a lot of things, wouldn't it?

"You could let me open the door first before you ..." Q says as he tears his lips free, and then: "Oh!" His eyes widen and his jaw drops slightly, as if he only now realised that Jeunet, Chabrier and one of Jeunet's bodyguards are observing them.

Bond jumps back, straightens up and clears his throat, looking anywhere but at Q. He somehow manages to look slightly drunk while Q pretends to fumble for the lock and tries to force a blush onto his cheeks. For someone who never blushes he thinks he's doing pretty well.

"Good evening," Bond mumbles.

It's remarkable, really, how much feeling Bond is capable of expressing when it's required of him. He sounds and looks absolutely mortified. Q can't wait to tease him for it.

"Good evening," Jeunet replies. His tone is also a bit subdued, but probably more due to surprise and awkwardness than actual disapproval, because he also sounds as if he is trying not to laugh.

Q gets the door open, mumbles something so unintelligible it could have been an attempt at "good evening" or at a recital of Tennyson, and quickly dives into the suite. Bond follows him a second later, closing the door behind him.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Bond leans back on the door and stares at Q, who, much to his own surprise, is shaking with pent-up laughter.

"Cheeky," Bond says, and is it just Q's imagination or is the agent short of breath?

"This from the man who has assaulted me twice today," Q retorts. "I don't even believe you knew that door was going to open. I believe you just got lucky."

He believes nothing of the sort, of course – he knows a thing or two about calculating odds and the coincidence would be great indeed – but he can't resist goading Bond. It seems to be a new weakness he's developed since meeting the man.

Bond grabs Q's arm and yanks him towards the door, and because Q is still quietly laughing he's not prepared enough to put up a fight.

"Haven't gotten lucky yet," Bond says when Q finds himself once again with his back against the door, only on the other side of it. It's the first time Bond uses the deep voice he reserves for seduction on Q, Q notes. They're chest to chest, and more or less of a height. Q's hair has fallen down over his eyes again, and his glasses have slid down his nose. He reaches up to adjust them, and makes sure before he speaks that he won't laugh or let his voice waver.

"And I don't think you will, 007."

The smile on Bond's lips reaches his eyes at that. He pushes a thigh between Q's, and it becomes apparent to both of them that whatever is going on here, the interest in it is mutual.

"The calm and collected Q. Now we know what it takes to make your voice falter," Bond says. "I wonder what it takes to make it _loud?_"

"I don't know what makes you so sure it can be done," Q replies, fighting to keep up the very calm that seems to intrigue Bond so much, as Bond returns Q's gesture from their little act outside.

Q can control his voice, but he can't control the way he arches up into Bond's hand.

"Well, I don't like to call anything impossible before I've given it a try," Bond drawls.

"Don't you have ..." Q has to pause and bite his lip for a second. "Don't you have a lecture to go to?" His recent interactions with Bond aside, Q hasn't been this close to another warm body in ages – he's fairly certain he was already hard when they entered the suite, and now he's beginning to fear this story will have an embarrassing ending.

"I have some time to spare," Bond says.

"Do try to be professional, 007."

Q doesn't know why he hasn't said that sooner. He blames it on the very distracting combination of Bond's hand jerking him off and Bond's warm mouth trailing down his neck.

"All in good time, Q, all in good time," Bond whispers and does something with his hand that makes the whole thing end even quicker than Q had thought.

Q wishes he could punch the smug grin off of Bond's face, but he fears any feeble punch he could throw at Bond right now would only widen it. Bond pulls away and Q does up his trousers, taking care to do it slowly so as not to seem unsettled or ashamed.

"See," Bond says, eyes practically sparkling, "that didn't take long. But I still didn't get to hear you scream. What a shame."

"Conceited bastard," Q mutters, but it's hard to put much animosity into it when he's still coming down from that high. Bond just smiles at him. Q glares; he refuses to be the first one to look away.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Q continues, a bit more collected now even though his heart is still in his throat. "If you think I'll return the favour you've miscalculated the situation severely. Get on with the mission." He notices he's adjusting his glasses again and freezes for a moment before he continues the movement as if he'd meant to do it all along.

Bond chuckles. "Maybe later," he says and turns around, sliding his tie off as he walks towards his room. Q quickly makes his way towards his own. "Oh, and Q," Bond calls behind him, and Q turns to see him standing his the doorway, unbuttoning his cuffs.

"Yes?"

"I asked room service to put dinner in your room before I left. Henri said he'd come up with it himself – in case you feel the need to search the cutlery for bugs."

With that, Bond disappears into his room and Q is allowed to walk into his and collapse against the wall. There is indeed a tray on his bedroom table with dinner on it.

A while later, Q hears Bond leave his room. The footsteps pause for a moment outside Q's door, but then they move on. It's only when he hears the door to the suite close that Q gets up from the floor. He originally meant to work on his laptop until Bond returned, but after he's eaten and given HQ the heads up about what they're planning, he just lies down on the bed instead. He falls asleep almost instantly.

* * *

A/N:_ Hello! I'm thrilled to see so many people are following this. Hopefully I'll be a bit quicker with the updates now that my summer hols have begun. I hope this chapter was to your liking. I'm new to the fandom (and to smut, as little of it as there was - enough to raise this from a rated T to rated M, though) and while I've been _watching_ Bond all my childhood, _writing_ him has been unexpectedly difficult. But I've just begun reading Casino Royale, so maybe that'll help a bit. I'll bring you James' next chapter in a day or two._


	8. Youth, Beauty and Firearms

"_Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?  
Will you still love me when I've got nothing but my aching soul?"_

- Lana Del Rey, _Young and Beautiful_

**Youth, Beauty and Firearms**

James has a quick shower and a wank before he gets dressed and heads down to Jeunet's lecture. He wouldn't usually have to do this after such a short (and rather one-sided) encounter, but the way Q managed to call him "007" while James had his hand down Q's pants, the way Q had bit his lips and had his fingers curled in James's shirt one moment only to straighten his glasses and give James orders (bloody _orders_, for god's sake) the next – somehow makes James feel like he's the dishevelled one, instead of Q who stood by the door and tucked his shirt back into his trousers with his slim, shaking hands and stared James down. It's unsettling. It's intriguing.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

When the lecture is over and James has a glass of whiskey in his hand, he manages to pry Jeunet a few steps away from the crowd. Proper decorum would probably be not to mention what Jeunet had witnessed upstairs (James wouldn't know, he's never been caught with a man before) but he wants to know if Jeunet bought it, which would make him less likely to suspect a betrayal from Chabrier – and whether he's homophobic enough that it's made him less predisposed to meet with James tomorrow, which would rather ruin things – so he says:

"I'm sorry about the little ... _scene_, upstairs. I had a drink or two too many at dinner, I'm afraid."

Jeunet just shrugs.

"'To each his own', is the expression I believe you use, Monsieur McEwan. I admit that I cannot understand why a man like you would pursue that young man – even if I can see he is not ... bad looking – when there are so many beautiful women here!" Jeunet gestures towards the room and James thinks to himself that yes, there are indeed several stunningly beautiful women in the room and he wonders why he hadn't noticed before. "But the desire," Jeunet continues, "the desire I know well enough. It is the same desire, no?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"Youth and beauty," Jeunet muses, clearly studying Chabrier who is talking to an older woman on the other side of the room. "I have worshipped those traits since I possessed them myself. It makes me feel I am still young. It makes me feel I am still ... in my golden age. I suppose for you this is even more true, no? A young man to make you feel like a young man?" Jeunet gives James a look but doesn't wait for an answer. "When I look at a woman of my own age, she can be beautiful, she can be clever – but I see only ... only ..." He waves his hand, searching for the words, and nearly spills his drink. "A house and a dog. You know? And then, I feel the taste of death in my mouth. The young women, they come, they go, but they all save me from a life like that one."

Bond certainly feels the taste of something stale in his mouth. He takes a sip of whiskey and hopes years of training and habit is enough to hide his discomfort, as he remembers a conversation he had years ago – before Vesper, even – while seducing a married woman to get to the man.

_"You like married women, don't you, James?" "It keeps things simple." "What is it about bad men? You, my husband – I had so many chances to be happy, so many nice guys. Why can't nice guys be more like you?" "Because then they'd be bad." "Yes. But so much more interesting."_

He remembers what her corpse looked like.

He's just like Jeunet, he knows. Except in James' case it's not bodyguards with straying eyes that end up dead – it's the beautiful young women.

"Maybe you're right," he says and has another mouthful of whiskey. "But I like to think of myself as the type that will settle down one day." He's not sure why he says that – he's never thought of himself that way, not before Vesper, and certainly not after – but he feels the need to distance himself from Jeunet even if that is the opposite of what he's meant to be doing.

"Settle down with a man?" Jeunet asks with a raised eyebrow. "And keep your business contacts? You are optimistic."

James shrugs.

"Well," Jeunet says and takes a sip of his drink. "I suppose if you have enough money, no one will care what you do, hm?"

Jeunet is relaxed now, and James can tell that the little act upstairs served a purpose after all. He grins, getting back on track.

"Speaking of money: that little business venture of yours..."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

They agree to another meeting the next day. Eventually Jeunet is dragged off by other investors and James seizes the opportunity to talk to Chabrier. _Young and beautiful_, he thinks, and downs the last of the whiskey before he smooth-talks her into letting Q hack into her boss' computer tomorrow. "We'll bring down him and his whole league," he tells her. "All you will have to do is keep quiet about what we did for twenty four hours," he tells her. "You'll never have to be afraid of him again," he tells her.

She believes him. They always do.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He leaves a message for Henri, before he returns to the suite and carefully opens the door to Q's room. The Quartermaster is in already bed. The blinds have not been closed properly, and moonlight – or probably just lamplight, but one likes to be romantic in Paris – hits the mass of dark curls visible above the duvet. James gets a strong impulse to check for a pulse, but when he waits and looks he sees that the duvet rises and falls with Q's breaths, so instead he walks silently over to the window and adjusts the blinds before he goes back to his own room.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

James wakes up early in the morning. While he washes himself off and gets dressed, he runs through the plan once more in his head. He considers all the possible scenarios that could unfold. The best scenario is that Q finds exactly what they are looking for, MI6 relay the necessary information for the French authorities to take down Jeunet's league as the arms deal takes place, and James and Q are out of Paris before Jeunet even realises something went wrong. Counting downwards from there, there are various scenarios of half-success or half-failure. Jeunet could discover that someone's been tampering with his tech and change the time and spot for the deal. They might never get their hands on the information in the first place. Chabrier could get nervous later and tell Jeunet about him and Q, leaving them the prime targets for retaliation. Chabrier could get herself killed. And finally, the worst scenario: Chabrier could tell Jeunet what they're planning, or something could go wrong on Henri's end, allowing Jeunet to either lead them into a trap or catch them red-handed. Bond could bleed out on the carpeted hotel floor watching not only Chabrier's but the MI6 Quartermaster's cooling corpse beside him.

He checks the Walther, loads it and puts it in his shoulder holster. When he has adjusted his suit jacket, it's invisible.

He walks over to the other bedroom. Q doesn't make a sound, even in his sleep. James opens the blinds and walks up to the bed. Q stirs when the light hits him. He must move a lot in his sleep, because the duvet has slipped down to his waist and tangled itself around his legs. Q's skin is slightly darker than James', a tone that suggest he might actually be able to achieve quite a tan if he spent any time in the sun instead of an office and lab in a London basement. There's not much muscle on Q's torso, but James is not able to count his ribs like he would have guessed.

Q's eyes open and fix on him. James smiles.

"No trouble sleeping tonight?" he asks innocently.

"Fuck you, Bond," Q grumbles. "Leave me alone."

"Maybe later," James replies, ignoring the vulgar language and leaving it up to Q to decide exactly what it is he's referring to. "We have an operation to complete first."

Q stares at him a while longer, (_Obviously not a morning person_, James thinks) then he reaches out. For a second James thinks he'll touch his face, and maybe he's about to, but then the hand changes course slightly and paws at the bedside table until it closes around Q's glasses. Q sits up and puts them on.

"What time is it?" he asks. He picks up his watch, looks at it and nods slightly. The tone of his voice and the look on his face are transformed back from the sleep-addled young man to the cool, collected Quartermaster. James is impressed by how quickly he recovers. "Let's go then," Q says.

Q shuffles out of bed with no apparent shyness about his half naked state (simple white cotton pants – James is not surprised), picks up a few items of clothing from the bag on the floor and heads for the bathroom. James' eyes follow him. Q only looks around as he reaches out to close the door. He pauses for a moment to look at Bond, but when neither man reacts, Q pulls the door closed behind him. James, still standing in Q's room, takes a look around.

The person responsible for the interior design of the hotel has bought into the idea of Paris as the city of romance. It's done in a classy way – no big English roses on the wallpapers, no crocheted doilies – it's in the little details, and in the overall feeling. This room that Q chose for himself is only about twice as big as the queen-sized bed in its centre, if that. The walls are painted egg-shell white, and the morning sun has just begun to shine in through the French windows – so called for a reason, apparently.

There's a wardrobe in a corner where Q has hung his suits and shirts. His shoes stand by the door. The rest of his belongings appear to have been left in the open bag. For someone who's well into the second half of a vacation, Q has kept his luggage extraordinarily tidy; everything is divided into neat piles, taking advantage of the space that has been freed up in the bag by the removal of suits and shoes to make the remaining items easier to survey. The lid of the bag has a pocket on the inside where the zipper is open a few inches. James opens it. At first he thinks the content is a second, smaller laptop (Q's main one is on the bedside table) but at a second glance he realises it's a slim box. He picks it up and sits down on the bed to study it. There's a code lock and a small button on the side. James pushes the button and the lid snaps open. He's not surprised to see a gun inside. It's a little bit shorter than the Walther, a little bit slimmer, and matte black – nothing to catch the light and attract the attention of one's opponent at the wrong moment. James' looks for the little control light that would suggest the gun is coded to Q's palm print, but finds none. That doesn't mean it's not "a personal statement" though; James can tell that Q must have played around with this gun more than it lets on, because James can no longer recognise the make. He tries to remember if this was the piece Q used in Reading, but draws a blank despite his usually brilliant memory for weapons. He hears Q come back out of the bathroom, but doesn't look up from his examination.

"You shouldn't leave your weapon out in the open," he says as Q opens the wardrobe. The hangers knock against each other as Q picks out his clothes.

"It was hardly 'in the open'", Q points out. "I leave the box unlocked when I go to sleep so that I can get to it more quickly if something should happen. I thought you'd approve."

James turns around to look at him. A white shirt now hangs on the wardrobe door. Q is buckling the belt on a pair of well fitted black trousers. For a brief moment James mind is overtaken by the impulse to pull Q over to the bed and into his lap by that belt, but he pushes it aside for more important matters.

"If you keep your weapon that far away from you it is just as likely to end up in your attacker's hands as in yours. You should keep it under your pillow."

Q gives him a look as he pulls on the shirt.

"People actually do that?" he asks.

James puts the gun back in the box and closes it.

"It's a safety precaution, Q. I can show you the statistics if you like, for civilians as well as in the service."

"No, I believe you."

"If you don't have your weapon on you, it's not _your _weapon," James says, and throws the box at Q who catches it with unexpected deftness.

"Can you fire that today, if it becomes necessary?"

"I've already used it once in the field," Q reminds him.

"And you killed a man. Which is why I'm asking you if you're really ready to do it again."

Q looks at the box in his hands for the briefest of seconds before he meets James' eyes.

"Yes."

James remembers Q's words yesterday about the importance of bringing Jeunet down, and figures Q means it; or at least he believes he means it, which will hopefully be good enough. James nods and gets up to leave. Q hunches down by the bag and pulls out his holster from another discreet pocket. James watches from the doorway as he puts it on and slides the gun in place. Q's hair has been slicked back again, his back is straight and his movements practiced. He could pass for a professional. James takes the suit jacket off its hanger and holds it out to Q.

"Breakfast?"

**00Q00Q00Q00**

* * *

_A/N: So, my attempts at writing a Frenchman with a good English vocabulary but slightly more lacking English grammar ... might have failed completely. I tried though. And I have studied both languages, so I'm fairly sure it's not _miles_ off the mark. But if there are any French people reading this, please don't think I'm trying to make fun of you or anything. I'm just not very good at French._


	9. The Waiting Game

_A/N: I know absolutely nothing about computer-hacking (I've done _some_ coding, but only HTML, SQL and some PHP-code). I'm being deliberately vague in an attempt to pull this chapter off anyway. And now I've gone and blown it by admitting this to you..._

* * *

_"Use me, take me home and use me  
Press your hands into my body  
You'll be my sorrow  
We both know it shows_

_Push me, make me feel I'm weightless  
Running, we will not escape this  
shake this"_

- Paloma Faith, _Agony_

**The Waiting Game**

Q feels jittery for several reasons when the meeting with Jeunet begins. Number one is that he's been hyperaware of Bond's presence all morning. Every time Bond is within two feet of him, little shivers crawl across his skin. The fact that Vauxhall is now back on the line with them is not helping; Q is constantly afraid Bond will utter some damning remark. The second and third reasons are the obvious ones: the anxiety to finish the mission now that it is within their reach, and the clear and present danger of trying to pull it off right under the noses of Jeunet and his bodyguard. The fourth reason is the almost giddy anticipation he feels at the thought of getting to hack into the laptop of Michel Jeunet himself.

Bond and Jeunet sit opposite each other in leather armchairs. Jeunet's laptop rests on the low table between them; Q is holding his. The only other people in the room are Chabrier and the bodyguard.

The charade of an actual business discussion begins, and goes on for about fifteen minutes before there's a knock on the door. Henri, their man from the Deuxième Bureau, steps in. He apologises profusely for the interruption and tells Jeunet there's an urgent phone call for him in the reception.

Jeunet scowls.

"Who in this day and age would call the hotel to find me?" he asks in French, but Henri only murmurs something apologetic with a barely perceptible shrug.

Clearly suspicious, Jeunet looks to his bodyguard. The man nods. Jeunet makes his excuses to Bond, saying he's sure he'll be back momentarily, and shuts his laptop. For one soul crushing moment Q thinks he'll take it with him and all this will have been in vain, but then Jeunet gets up, whispers something to Chabrier, and leaves the room with his bodyguard in tow. The laptop remains on the table.

For Q, it is Christmas.

He sits down in the now vacant chair, puts down his laptop and opens Jeunet's.

"How long will it take, what you want to do?" Chabrier asks nervously. Her accent is stronger than her employer's.

"Not long," Q says and spares her a quick smile. He connects the two computers and goes to work. The truth is that he has no idea how long it might take before he can see what he's dealing with, but they haven't _got_ long, ergo, whatever he'll achieve, it can't take long.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q's fingers fly over the keyboard. Problems and solutions follow each other in quick succession on the screen; dead ends and traps are fallen into, avoided and conquered. The memory of the last time he hacked Jeunet's coding, years ago, rises to the surface in his mind as he taps the keys, and he draws on what he learned from trying to crack the lock to Jeunet's hotel suite. His brain is flooded with endorphins. Focusing on the screen, Q feels like someone who has been indoors for days, perhaps trapped in a sickbed, finally being allowed to go outside: it feels as if the world expands around him, as if the air is purer and the sky bluer than it used to be. At last, he's back in his element.

He is dimly aware that Bond is watching him from across the table, looking down at his watch from time to time. They have calculated the time it will take Jeunet to get to the lobby and back. It's not long. The hope is that the faked phone call will fool him long enough. Something mundane about a car that has been towed away – Q doesn't remember the details.

Q has just gained the upper hand in his digital wrestling match when Bond's phone signals that a text has been received.

"It's Henri. They're heading back."

"Almost there," Q says absently.

"Time is up, Q. Close it down."

Q doesn't even pause.

"I've got through most of the defences. I'm downloading what I've accessed now," he says to HQ, not to Bond. Q-branch is on the other end, and he's talking to Cook, but he's pretty sure Jenkinson will be standing over his shoulder.

"He'll be back in ninety seconds," Bond points out, as if this had escaped Q. "I'm telling you to close it down."

Q keeps his eyes on the unfolding code in front of him when he replies:

"I'm sure I don't have to remind you of all people that, as your quartermaster, I outrank you. Also, I can finish this in less than sixty seconds."

"Well, I guess there are times when finishing quickly is a virtue."

Q won't dignify that with an answer.

"I'm sending this over to you now," he tells Cook instead. "Please confirm."

"No witty comeback? I'm disappointed," Bond says.

Q ignores him again, turns around to Chabrier and thanks her.

"We're receiving the information now, sir," Cook confirms.

"Good," Q says, disconnects his own laptop and quickly hides the last of his traces on Jeunet's before snapping it shut. His pulse is racing. At the other end of the table Bond is smiling at him, that smug smile of his that wasn't so much on his lips as in his eyes.

"I can't help but be fascinated that there's a whole department full of people who call you Sir."

Q glares a bit at him, more for the earlier remark than this one. He collects his belongings and stands up, projecting a calm exterior to cover the raging chaos of stress, annoyance, passion and excitement inside.

"Actually, with the exception of the ten or so people whose rank doesn't require them to,_ everyone _calls me Sir. But don't worry, I'm sure we'll have you trained in no time, too – old dog or no."

"Is that a promise?"

The note of seduction in Bond's voice is so intoxicating to the mind already drunk on triumph and success that Q doesn't care that Vauxhall is listening. In a moment of boldness he takes the three steps over to Bond's chair and sits down on the armrest, close enough that he feels the warmth of Bond's body through the sliver of air between them.

"I thought of it more as a threat, but I suppose it all depends on your personal preferences."

Q keeps his voice cold, and hopefully it sounds like a sarcastic rebuttal in the ears of Cook and anyone else who might be listening but not watching.

Bond's smile turns just a little bit predatory.

"Trust me, Q: you're no one's idea of a threat."

Q taps his fingers against his laptop and smiles.

"Which clearly is just one of the things that work to my advantage."

Bond is about to reply, but with a soft click the door opens and Jeunet returns. Q flies up from where he's been sitting almost in Bond's lap and resumes his place standing one step behind Bond, awkwardly studying the carpet. It all looks very suspicious in all the right ways.

Jeunet looks between them, smiles as he says something about how he hopes his absence didn't bore them, and soon the conversation picks up where it left off. For the remainder of the meeting, Q feels like his insides are made of helium and he's about to drift away into the clouds.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He should have known it wouldn't be as easy as that.

Q-branch takes their sweet time analysing the material Q's brought them, even with the sporadic support of Q, who also has to keep up their cover by participating in the last day of the conference. He catches Bond looking at him every now and then, and each time it seems to elevate Q's body temperature by another degree, but they don't continue their flirting. If that's what they're doing – Q still can't wrap his head around it. The restlessness Q felt at the beginning of the day has only increased, and continues to do so as the day wears on.

They're having dinner when Vauxhall finally decides to let them know how things are going on that end. By then the earpieces have transmitted nothing but silence for so long that Q almost jumps in surprise at the voice in his ear. Bond's only sign of surprise is turning to give Q a look – meeting his eyes this time.

"We've found references to a meeting taking place tonight," they're told. "We don't have enough evidence to verify beyond a doubt that it's the one we've been trying to prevent, but it's good enough. The Deuxième Bureau will be moving in on Jeunet's organisation on four different locations tonight thanks to the information you gathered, including the site of the trade. We want the two of you to stay where you are until we can confirm that Jeunet has left for one of the locations. We don't need him to be alarmed by your absence."

Q realises this last explanation is made for his benefit, even though it is nearly as obvious to him as he imagines it is to Bond.

"We'll contact you again when it's safe to end the operation. Thank you for your work."

With that the lines go silent again.

Q's appetite is mysteriously gone. He looks down on the half-finished meal on his plate and feels queasy at the thought of another bite. He supposes he should be happy, but he can't escape the feeling that he was just told that he's been a good boy, but now he should sit back and be quiet until the grownups finish the job. Everything still hangs in the balance, and Q is back to having no influence over the course of events. He sits through the rest of the meal in silence.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q makes his escape from the extravagant crowd downstairs to the silence of the suite as soon as it is safe to do so. For a while he busies himself by packing his bags, getting ready to leave without delay when the call comes. When he's done, he picks up his laptop by reflex, but decides he doesn't feel like working and replaces it unopened. Instead he pulls out a book, lies down on the bed and leans back against the headboard to read it.

That is how Bond finds him, not twenty minutes later.

Q doesn't hear him come in, which should be worrying. He just looks up suddenly – alerted by something, at least, though he's not sure what – and there Bond is, leaning against the doorframe like a lion at rest.

"Hasn't anyone taught you to knock?" Q asks.

"Hasn't anyone taught you not to leave your bedroom door open unless you want company?" Bond retorts and takes a few steps into the room, hands in his trouser pockets, suit jacket already gone. Q hastily looks back down at the book; to avoid the look in Bond's eyes, and to be able to ignore the thrill that look sends through his body.

"Your last night on the field and you spend it reading," Bond says with a tone of disapproval.

"Why not? Nothing more to do, my team have their instructions, my bag is packed, and there might be hours left before we can leave – maybe all night."

"And reading a book was the best way you could think of to pass the time."

Q can almost sense Bond moving closer, like the thrumming in the air that signals the approach of a thunder storm.

"Yes," Q says and turns the page even though he hasn't read it. "But I'm aware it's not how you usually spend the dead hours after a mission, so feel free to head down to the hotel bar and pick up some mysterious beauty or whatever it is you do. Just make sure you go to her room and not yours, please."

A part of Q actually hopes Bond will follow this advice – it would prevent so many complications.

The bed dips as Bond sits down.

"And risk ruining our cover at the last minute when I have someone who's both mysterious and beautiful right here? I'm shocked you think me so unprofessional, Q."

Maybe it's just because the words sound a bit smarmy, but the line feels like a slap to the face. And like a slap on the face, it wakes him up and makes him wonder what the hell has got into him. He's been flirting with a Double O for days. Maybe longer.

"Yes, how could I possibly have got that impression?" Q says. He means it to be a taunt, but his belated anxiety drains the humour from his voice and leaves only sarcasm.

Bond gently removes the book from Q's hands, forcing him to look up.

"Come on Q. You haven't read a page in that book."

Bond looks positively mischievous – there's no other word for it. Q's heart beats against his ribs, and the sound of it echoes in his head. Bond closes the book and puts it on the bedside table. Q reaches for it, but Bond grabs his wrist.

"This is a bad idea, 007."

Bond brings Q's wrist to his mouth and kisses it, never breaking eye contact. Q wonders if the skin under Bond's lips is warmer than it ought to be, the way his blood rushes through his veins. He wonders if Bond can tell.

"You flirted with me earlier today," Bond says. "You all but crawled into my lap. Not to mention what you let me do to you yesterday."

"Yes, well, I probably shouldn't have. But that's no reason to ..."

Q trails off as Bond leans forward and kisses Q's lips instead. The kiss is light as a feather and is followed by another one like it, then another on his jaw, and another on his neck. They're almost innocent in their gentleness, and more arousing than Q will ever admit. Bond's hands begin to pull Q's shirt out of his trousers.

"This would be really inappropriate," Q says and tries to pull back. He's stopped by the headboard.

"You're not a child, Q, even if I call you one sometimes."

Q fights down the urge to wrestle Bond down on the bed and wipe that smug grin off his face. It's not as if Q would win a wrestling match with Bond, anyway, but the images in his head are enough to make his skin burn.

"No, I'm your superior, which is why this will look considerably worse on my resume than on yours. Theoretically, if anyone in Vauxhall found out I could get charged with sexual harassment."

Bond laughs, the bastard, an honest, out loud, laugh.

"I won't tell if you won't, _sir_."

The thrill that runs through Q's body at being called "sir" by Bond in that tone is as powerful as it is unexpected, and the way Bond's eyes widen for a second shows that Q's reaction is not lost on him. Bond's hands come up to Q's collar, touching the button there, and then they go still. It takes Q a few flustered moments before he realises that Bond is waiting for permission. Q wonders if the heat in his face means he's actually blushing.

"Alright then."

Bond gives him an odd look, but begins to unbutton Q's shirt. Q watches. It strikes him how odd it is that when he does this himself, his body barely registers that his fingers brush the chest underneath, yet when Bond does it every single touch of his fingers sets off little fireworks under Q's skin. How do the nerve endings know when it's someone else's fingers and when it's one's own, he wonders?

He is taken out of his musings on how well-programmed the human brain is by Bond's amused voice.

"Am I boring you, Q?"

"No." The answer comes out a bit too quickly, but at least he manages to keep his voice level, detached. He has the strangest feelings that he is playing chess and having sex at the same time.

"Good," Bond replies and leans in to kiss Q's neck, more passionately this time, and Q instinctively tilts his head to the other side. Bond somehow manages to pull Q's shirt off at the same time, in a move that tells Q, if he needed to be told, that Bond has done this many, many times before. Perhaps not with another man (although Q hardly thinks Bond is a complete beginner in any field) but in general. Like Bond has just hinted, the fact that Q is a man doesn't mean he doesn't tick some of the other boxes on Bond's list.

Bond on the other hand certainly doesn't fit into any line-up of Q's lovers. This won't be the first time Q goes to bed with a man, but he can count the previous occasions on one hand, and none of those men were quite so ... alpha-male, for lack of a better word. Q has never been drawn to the type. Except, apparently, when he is high as a kite on adrenaline. _The things you learn about yourself in the field_.

Q reaches for Bond's shirt and unbuttons it, trying to match the grace and patience that Bond had. When he carefully runs his hands over Bond's body he realises this is the first time he's really been able to look at Bond like this. He can feel Bond's muscles moving underneath his fingers, he can feel Bond's body heat through the palms of his hands, he can feel Bond shift in response to his touch. It is an intoxicating feeling, watching Bond's body, larger and stronger than his own, and thinking of the hundred little ways he could make it do exactly what he wants. Bond might be taking charge of the proceedings, but he is surprisingly responsive. Every movement from Q is matched by a countermove from Bond, either to let Q follow the motion through or to push him back: as they kiss, as they shed the rest of their clothes, as their bodies align. It's like a dance.

Bond kisses an already tender piece of skin on Q's neck – there will be a hickey there tomorrow, just beneath his collar – and Q leans in to nibble at the nearest part of Bond he can reach, which happens to be his ear. Bond seems amused by that, and chuckles against Q's neck. The irregular puffs of air tickle.

"Do you always find sex this amusing, 007?" Q asks, pleased to find his voice still isn't betraying any sign of dwindling self-control.

"Not always," Bond admits, and looks up at Q. There's that keen intelligence in his eyes, the one Q was so embarrassingly late to recognise that Bond possesses. "Sometimes it's just a chore," he says and kisses Q's collarbone. "Sometimes it's aggressive, or animalistic, a release." He swirls his tongue around Q's left nipple, and Q arches up into it with a gasp. "And sometimes it's a mix of pleasure and curiosity." Bond smiles at him. "I was wondering when you were going to show some sign of being affected, _Quartermaster_. I was almost beginning to feel offended."

Q fears he will no longer be able to keep desire out of his voice, so he shuts up. Bond doesn't remark on it.

Once the banter is over, Bond is so silent it's like making love to a ghost. Q has never been the loud type, but now he is painfully aware of all the quiet little gasps and moans he can't hold back. They seem to echo in the room around him, seem loud enough for the neighbours must hear him, even though he's aware he probably couldn't be heard in the next room over even if the door was open.

Bond must like the sounds he makes though, because he is quick to find every little spot that gives him an extra reaction and work at it with his fingers, or his lips, or his tongue, until Q feels like it's all he can do not to explode into a thousand little pieces. His breastbone, the inside of his elbow, and a spot right below his bottom left rib all get this treatment. When Bond's mouth finds a spot just where Q's torso meets his thigh and sucks at the skin there, Q actually gives a little shout of surprise at the fire and hunger that rushes through his body. Bond makes a sound in the back of his throat, somewhere between a moan and an animal growl. Q's legs kick and stretch reflexively as if he is having a seizure, his body trying to shake off the tension building up inside. Bond's grip on his hips tightens in response, until Q can tell he'll have bruises tomorrow just from this. Q brings a hand to Bond's head. He doesn't know why he pulls upward – he wouldn't mind if Bond moved his mouth a couple of inches downwards instead – but he does, or tries to, not quite getting a grip in that short, blond hair. Bond still gets the message. Without further warning he pulls Q down by the hips so that his head slips off the pillows. It has barely hit the mattress below before Bond's lips are on his cheek, on his neck, under his ear. One of Bond's hands wraps around both their erections and sets up a killing pace from the start, and then Bond's mouth is on his again, cutting off even more of Q's oxygen, making his head spin and his heart beat twice as fast to keep up. There's no teeth in Bond's kisses, just lips and tongue, and still Q feels as if he's being devoured. Sex hasn't felt like this in a long time – maybe never. The adrenaline rush is so powerful that Q feels as if he's weightless, as if might float away like a helium balloon at any second. He wraps both arms around Bond's torso and pulls them together until Bond reluctantly puts his entire weight on Q. It feels even better. He feels grounded, like a kite tied to a rock.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Once again, Q comes quicker than he has since he was in his teens, gasping into Bond's mouth. He has a moment when he's overcome by bliss, and then one when he's equally overcome by shame – not just because of how easily Bond makes him come undone, but because he just slept with a co-worker for Pete's sake – before the two feelings mingle and begin to slowly wear off. He opens his eyes to see Bond's icy blue ones look back.

"Hm," Bond says with a smile, as if he was not at all affected by the previous activities. "I guess age might be a guarantee of efficiency after all."

The smug bastard. Q can't have that.

He flips them over so that he's straddling Bond, in a manoeuvre he's sure he wouldn't have been able to pull off if the other man had been even the least bit prepared for it. He revels in the little hitch in Bond's breath that is the only sign of his surprise, and replaces Bond's hand with his own, slowing down the pace considerably from what Bond did before. Bond looks a bit displeased for a moment, but while Q might not have had many partners, well, that's not a requirement to know how to do this, is it? And he's always been quite good with his fingers.

He busies himself with placing kisses along Bond's collarbone, on the scarred shoulder, on the skin stretched over muscles a man half Bond's age would kill for. Bond's fingers tread into Q's curls and ball into a fist, pulling at Q's hair in a way that's probably not meant to hurt but does a bit. Q bites down lightly on the skin underneath his mouth in retaliation. To his surprise, Bond jolts as if he just touched a live wire. Q repeats the action, timing it to the movements of his hand and fingers. The result is more than pleasing.

Q doesn't expect to hear his title gasped out when Bond comes, but there it is:

"Q."

It's conscious, it has to be. Bond has to know what it does to Q to hear that. Bond's voice has gone so low that Q almost feels his bones vibrate to the base notes in it.

He slips partially off of Bond, and rests his head on Bond's chest. The hand that was tangled in his hair slips down to his neck, and the fingers stroke up and down in soothing motions. To soothe whom, he's not quite sure.

Exhaustion comes over him like a wave, and Q is almost asleep by the time Bond tries to extricate himself from his arms. He's tired and lightheaded enough to groan in disappointment and say:

"Stay here, 007."

Bond freezes. He goes so utterly still in Q's arms that Q really wouldn't have been surprised to find the agent's heart had stopped. He wonders why. Is it the title? Had Bond forgotten for a moment that he was sleeping with a co-worker and not a mark?

"I have to go to my room," Bond says after a few seconds of pause.

"No, you don't. Unless you have to go to the bathroom you don't_ have _to go anywhere at all, and I rather prefer you where you are, actually."

So he's regained the power of calm, coherent speech. What a pity he hasn't also regained the ability to censor himself.

"Q ..."

Now Bond sounds hesitant and regretful. Amazing how much can be crammed into one letter. Q predicts a speech of some sort about how this was a one-time thing is about to follow, and decides to show mercy by cutting it off before it starts.

"Relax, 007. No need to react as if I was asking you to move in with me. God knows I wouldn't let you anywhere near my flat; it's bad enough to let you run around with my tech. I like my life the way it is; I'm not looking to change it to accommodate someone else. All I want is for your nice, warm body to stay in this bed, because it is delightfully comfortable."

Q is a bit surprised to hear the words coming out of his own mouth. Is he always this talkative after sex? Good god, he's a security risk. Easiest mark in the world, just sleep with him and he gives everything away. Did he just tell Bond he doesn't do relationships? Is that true? Is that why none of his relationships have led anywhere? He's not sure. He's never thought about it like that.

But he must have stumbled upon the right thing to say, because Bond relaxes, reaches for something and wipes away the worst of the stickiness from their bodies. Q's too tired to open his eyes and see what it is Bond is using, but at the touch of Bond's surprisingly gentle fingers against his stomach, he risks everything by blurting out:

"I wouldn't mind doing _this_ again though."

Thankfully Bond just chuckles, perhaps at the implied compliment to his abilities.

"I thought you didn't want me in your flat".

Q doesn't comment on the odd fact that Bond's mind immediately went to a scenario _after_ the mission.

"God no! You'd be moving things around and leaving your things everywhere and just make a mess." Q says it in a joking tone, but he means it, too, and he thinks Bond can hear that. "Besides, I'm not telling you where I live. It's classified."

"What makes you think I don't already know where you live?"

Q doesn't know what to say to that, at first. He is reminded again that Bond is smarter than Q first gave him credit for – much smarter.

"If you do, I might have to kill you," is the answer he settles for.

It earns him not only another honest-to-god laugh, but Bond wraps his arm around his waist and pulls him closer, as well.

"I'll bear that in mind," he whispers, and now a note of drowsiness has crept into Bond's voice, too.


	10. Midnight in Paris

_"Say, come over here  
let me smell you for one last time  
Before you go out there  
and ruin all of the world once mine_

_I'm out of the game  
I've been out for a long time now  
I'm looking for something  
can't be found on the main drag, no"_

- Rufus Wainwright, _Out of the Game_

**Midnight in Paris**

It's past three in the night when the phone call comes. James wakes up, and answers it. The message from HQ is that Jeunet is at one of the locations that the Deuxième Bureau is about to approach, that James and Q are expected to be on the first Eurostar out of Paris in the morning, and that further information might follow. James thanks for the information. Q stays asleep in his arms throughout the short conversation. James hangs up and decides that Q wouldn't make such a good field agent after all, as deep as he sleeps.

Normally, James would sneak out of the room at this point, take his things, leave his lover and move on. He has done it so many times it has become instinct. But he can't leave Q behind. Q is his colleague and his partner on this mission, more so than Vesper was, or than Eve was in Shanghai: he and Q have been given the same brief, the same orders. If anything, this is Q's operation – James is only here to keep Q safe. He can't leave him.

He should probably wake Q up and tell him the news – after all, HQ apparently saw it necessary to wake James up at this hour – but something stops him.

They never closed the blinds, and the blue moonlight from above and the yellow lights from the courtyard below hit Q's skin where he lies stretched out on the rumpled bedspread. They never got under the covers before falling asleep either, but the room is surprisingly warm for such an old building. James keeps a cold temperature in his own bedroom, so he's comfortable here without a duvet, and clearly the temperature doesn't bother Q enough to wake him up.

There's something strange about watching Q's naked body sprawled across the bed, so perfectly relaxed. Once again James is struck by how the usually austere and aloof Quartermaster is transformed by sleep – although James will claim some of the credit for stripping Q's strictness away before sleep did. He reaches out and with his fingertips he traces the ridges of Q's shoulder blades and the sweep of his spine. Q is beautiful, but his beauty is as contradictory as his behaviour. Nothing about Q, in his physical appearance or in his mannerisms, is typically masculine – at least not from James' frame of reference, which admittedly is coloured by a life in army and security circles. Q is too thin, even though he's wiry, and his movements are too soft, too graceful. But neither is there anything feminine about him, not even when set against a background like the quilted, rose-patterned bedspread. He is far too angular to be considered feminine; not a trace of a curve or a soft line, on his body or on that striking face. Q's beauty is one of a kind.

Q's behaviour and body language suggest that he is absolutely unaware of his own beauty, not in the way of a woman who does not consider herself beautiful, but in the way of someone who has never even considered his own body in those terms. In James' experience, no woman over the age of twelve falls into that category, and these days not many men do either, although they often work harder at hiding their vanities and insecurities – both to others and to themselves. James himself does not engage in that kind of self-deception: he is very aware of his looks and how to use them. It's part of his job. He's just as aware of the near perfection of his body as he is of the lines that are slowly forming around his eyes and the grey that becomes visible in his stubble if he doesn't shave often enough. But Q – Q might as well be a sprite, as little as he seems to care about his physical form. Draped over the bed he looks like the dream motif of one of the great romantic painters, with dark curls, flushed lips and skin that looks pale in moonlight; he's a vision of the young genius at rest, lost to the world around him.

James hopes he hasn't destroyed that quality by telling Q that he's beautiful. He can't imagine he has – Q didn't seem to take him seriously, and even if he had, James doesn't really believe that Q would ever let that go to his head, or that he would suddenly begin to worry about his appearance beyond the limited grip on dress codes he already shows. Admittedly, Q has surprised him before, but James thinks he has enough experience in this particular area to feel certain of his assessment.

Q shifts in his sleep so that the arm slung across James' chest slides downwards, and lets out a soft groan that makes James reconsider his earlier wish to keep Q sleeping.

"Q?"

He touches Q's face and runs a hand through the now ruffled hair. Q's eyes flutter open.

"Hm?"

James smiles at Q's bedraggled appearance and runs a hand down his exposed neck.

"Jeunet's gone. We're leaving, on the next train."

James slowly lets his hands wander. He can't stop caressing Q's skin.

"'time is it?" Q murmurs.

"A couple of hours yet."

Q is less controlled when he's just woken up, James finds, as Q gives a delicious moan when James' hands reach his arse and pulls him closer. Q gazes up at him, and in a second all sleepiness is gone from his eyes. He smiles.

"I take it you don't want to go back to sleep," he says, and his voice is clearer now too.

"Do you?" James asks, even though it's merely a rhetorical question at this point – he can feel what Q wants. Less than five minutes ago he was ready to leave the room, but James is nothing if not adaptable. He knows he might regret these indiscretions when they're back in London, but right now Q's warm body in his arms is too tempting to resist.

"I'm open to suggestions," Q admits.


	11. Hello, Mr Boothroyd

_A/N: I have seen many different names for Q in different fics, and I have read different authors reasons to use or not use the name used here. I understand all opinions. My own is that if Craig's rebooted Bond can meet Felix Leiter and Miss Moneypenny for the first time, he can meet Mr Boothroyd for the first time, too. ('Major' might be pushing it.) Also, I think the name suits him, somehow._

* * *

"_Well, a door left open, a woman walking by  
A drop in the water, a look in your eye  
A phone on the table, a man on your side  
Or someone that you think that you can trust  
Is just another way to die"_

Jack White & Alicia Keys, _Another Way to Die_

**Hello, Mr Boothroyd**

In the end, they have to hurry to get dressed and pack their bags in time to catch their train. Having already prepared his luggage the evening before, Q gathers his remaining belongings. He fishes up his gun, still in its holster, from where it's been rather carelessly dropped on the floor beside the bed. He can't even remember when he took it off – or when Bond took it off for him. He is about to return it to its case when Bond re-enters the room, immaculately dressed, and stops Q by stepping up behind him and grabbing his upper arms.

"Don't," he says.

Q freezes. A night's worth of memories floods his brain the moment Bond touches him, intensifying when he feels the other man's breath on his neck. He takes a breath to calm his nerves before he replies.

"You think I'll need it? We're done, the mission is over."

While he talks, Q can feel Bond's warm lips brush against the skin below his ear, and it's all he can do to keep his voice straight. He hadn't expected this, he hadn't even really expected Bond to still be in his bed in the morning, and he wonders when the moment will come – because it will surely come – when Bond changes back from this passionate creature to his coldblooded, professional self.

"No mission is over until you've been debriefed, and sometimes not even then," Bond tells him.

Oh, dear Lord. Q had forgotten about that.

"Well, this will certainly be an interesting debrief," he says sarcastically.

"Mm," Bond agrees, and Q feels the vibrations of his voice all over his skin, "it will: 'I'm sorry we were delayed, Sir, we missed our train because the Quartermaster was being a tease.'"

Bond's hands slide down from Q's arms to his hips, and the overwhelming rush of lust it causes makes Q jump. He tears himself free.

"_I'm_ a tease?" he asks, even though he really wouldn't mind making them miss the train.

Bond just grins at him. Q dons the holster and gives the gun a quick check before he slides it in place and reaches for his suit jacket.

"We have to go," he reminds Bond, except Bond already knows this so perhaps Q is just looking for something to say.

"After you," Bond says and gestures at the door.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The tension between them is like a wall of electricity. Q feels like the moth that keeps flying towards the light, receiving shock after buzzing shock every time he brushes against Bond at the crowded train station, and when Bond's fingers brush his as Bond takes Q's bag and puts it on the luggage rack, and, really, every single time Bond looks at him. It's excruciating, and it's divine. It makes him feel vividly alive. Every time he remembers the night he just had – the night _they_ just had – he gets warm all over. He can live off of this for a long time, he thinks as he gets the chance to study Bond while the other man has his back turned. For that one stolen moment, he revels in the knowledge that he has seen Bond undress, that he knows what the body in front of him looks like naked and thrown on a bed, that he knows what it feels like to run his hands over that back. Then Bond turns back around and Q acts calm and unaffected, and he's so good at it that even James Bond falls for it.

The train carriage never fills up. There are less than a dozen people in it when the train starts to roll – too early in a Sunday morning, Q supposes.

Q and Bond speak in a neutral manner about the mission, the hotel, the upcoming debrief and, only slightly more personal, whether Q's fear of flying and his dislike of the part of the journey that takes them through the tunnel are related. They don't speak about the night, or any of the less than professional incidents that preceded it. However, Q finds it hard to look away from Bond's eyes, his hands, his mouth and his broad shoulders, and he thinks Bond notices.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

They are approaching London, with only minutes left until they reach the station, when Bond's attention is ripped away from Q and his pale eyes turn cold.

"What is it?" Q asks, suddenly feeling a distinctly more unpleasant sort of tension settle around them.

"Jeunet," Bond says, keeping his voice down. "He walked into the carriage, stopped and turned back the way he came. He saw us."

Bond gets up without looking a second time at Q.

"Jeunet? But ..."

"Stay here," Bond interrupts, clearly intending to leave. Q has the presence of mind to grab his arm.

"Intercom," he says.

Bond looks at him, nods, and fishes his earpiece out of his breast pocket. Then he disappears down the carriage with one hand slightly raised, ready to reach under his jacket and grab the Walther if he has to.

Q has a distinct feeling of déjà-vu. He doesn't like it one bit.

He scrambles to find his own earpiece and set it to the correct frequency. He's about to place it in his ear and test it when someone grabs his hand, forcefully. Q looks up, thinking for one blissful second that it's Bond. The air is knocked out of his lungs when he recognises the man leaning over him. Before he can react the earpiece is pried from his fingers, thrown on the table and crushed. It happens so quickly – in seconds he loses his connection to both Bond and Vauxhall.

Q looks into the eyes of Jeunet's bodyguard. A knife is held one inch from his throat. Where Q sits, and with the angle the man had placed himself in relative to the rest of the carriage, none of the handful of people around them can see the blade.

"Come with me, s'il vous plaît."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q stands up slowly. He tries to detect a way out, anything he can do or say to change the situation, but he can't negotiate with the sharp point of the knife being carefully pressed against him. The man is so deft at keeping the weapon out of view that no one watching would be able to see anything amiss as Q is led to the end of the carriage where there's a door marked "out of use".

The man leads him inside, follows, and locks the door to the loo behind them. On the toilet seat in front of Q is Marie Chabrier, with her hands tied together behind her back, tape over her mouth and mascara running down over her cheeks. With the door closed, Q is forced to get so close to her that their knees knock together, until he's almost straddling her lap to keep his balance. She looks up at him with such desperation in her eyes it makes Q feel like crying himself. He's horrified to realise that she must have been sitting here the entire journey, while he and Bond were talking just a few yards away as if the whole affair was over.

The knife is now held against Q's throat. The bodyguard presses his body against Q's back in a twisted imitation of Bond's gesture of intimacy less than three hours earlier. The feeling of his breath passing Q's ear makes Q's skin crawl. He wants to throw himself as far away as possible, but between the blade in front of him and the limited space around him, he can't even move. If anyone saw them walk into the room, it must have looked like two peculiarly gloomy lovers seeking out a private place to be intimate, he realises. How ironic.

The man behind him does neither speak nor move. It unnerves Q, but he doesn't dare to speak with the cold steel pressed against his throat.

It feels like an entire year passes in this charged silence. In reality it can't be more than a minute, since no voice is heard announcing their imminent stop, and no real change in the train's speed can be detected.

Eventually, Q's phone rings.

_Bond_, Q's mind supplies hopefully, and his heart beats like a sledgehammer in his chest.

"Answer," the man wheezes in his ear.

Surprised by the order, Q happily complies. He pulls the phone out of his pocket, every move slow and careful. His stomach drops as an unfamiliar number appears on the screen. He takes the call.

"Hello?"

Jeunet's voice greets him, warm and cheerful, but his words turn Q's blood to ice:

"Hello, Mr Boothroyd!"

**00Q00Q00Q00**

* * *

A/N:_ It takes hours to write, minutes to review... *makes pleading puppy dog eyes* _

_And yes, this and a couple of the following chapters will be short, as I will change the POV more often to make the most of the suspense. Feel free to tell me what you think of it._


	12. The Kiss of Death

"_Love and other moments are just  
chemical reactions in your brain  
in your brain  
and feelings of aggression are the  
absence of the love drug in your veins  
in your veins"_

- Savage Garden, _Gunning Down Romance_

**The Kiss of Death**

Passing between the carriages of the train, James speaks to test the earpiece.

"Q, are you there?"

He is met by total silence.

"Q?"

Perhaps Q hasn't turned on his earpiece yet.

"HQ? Does anyone copy?"

Nothing. Very well; it won't be the first time he goes in blind.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He walks through three carriages, checking every face he passes, without a sign of Jeunet. If he were even a little unsure that it was Jeunet he had seen, he would give up and turn back. He is sure, so he keeps going.

It was a mistake to count Jeunet as captured as soon as he was sighted. He must have made the connection between the two men on the conference and the sudden attack on his organisation, and now here he is.

The train jerks slightly as it begins to slow down, and then James sees Jeunet, standing at the train's café, surrounded by people. Jeunet catches sight of James, raises his hand and waves a phone.

"Monsieur McEwan!" he calls out with a grin. Now everyone is looking at them, and James can't shoot the man without finding himself in the middle of pandemonium on a moving train with at least twenty eye witnesses. _Shit._

He moves closer, all senses on guard, and Jeunet smiles at him. This close, James can see that the smile is strained, plastered on Jeunet's face like a bad mask.

"Well, that is not your name, is it," Jeunet says when they're face to face, "but I must call you something, n'est-ce pas?"

"You lost the game, Monsieur Jeunet," James says. "It's over."

The other man's demeanour puts him on edge.

"Yes, you were very clever," Jeunet admits. "I lost a very important contract and almost all my storages were found. The people you work for will have the market all to themselves. At least for a moment, eh? At least for a moment."

James notes with some satisfaction that Jeunet clearly doesn't know who they're working for. Then the fake smile slips of Jeunet's face and his expression turns grave.

"I should say I am very angry with you and your friend, Mr McEwan. It was a very cruel trick you played on me. You forced me to kill my sweet Marie. She knew so much, and you turned her against me. I couldn't let her run. I'm hurt, monsieur. You broke my heart."

James freezes. He remembers Chabrier's worried expression the previous morning, as Q sat down by Jeunet's laptop. He remembers both of them reassuring her.

_One more dead young woman to add to the tally, James. _

He focuses. Jeunet is speaking to someone on the phone. Suddenly he hands the device to James.

"Here," he says with a grim smile. "Your heart, monsieur."

The sinking feeling is there before James' fingers even touch the phone. He puts it to his ear, never taking his eyes off Jeunet.

"Hello?"

First he thinks there's only silence on the other side, and wonders what kind of sick joke this is. Then he hears the ragged breath of someone, and a voice in the background orders: "Parlez!" The sinking feeling in James' stomach intensifies, until it is a black hole.

Q's voice comes over the line, as soft and professional as ever, if somewhat strained. He speaks very slowly.

"I am so very, very sorr..."

Q is cut off, and James hears the unmistakable muffled sound of a gun with a silencer, followed by a thud that is most likely the sound of a head hitting a hard surface. With a final click, the line is dead.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

For a moment, everything stops. Every person in the carriage seems to have frozen. The noise around them turns into a crushing silence. Everything in James' line of vision except Jeunet blurs to a grey fog. James' heart stops for one single beat. The train stops.

The next second, the spell is broken. The people around them head towards the doors, blind to everything but the way off the train where they've spent the last two hours. Jeunet has a grin on his face and a hand inside his jacket. He has no idea what he is getting himself into.

_Someone usually dies. _But someone is usually foreign, civilian, female and, from MI6' point of view, expendable. Q is none of those things. Out of the two of them, James is the expendable one. He was here to keep something like this from happening. Now he doesn't know whether Q is dead or alive. It's the worst kind of failure. Not three hours ago, he held Q in his arms. Now that beautiful body is somewhere on this train, slumped on a floor, bleeding out, because James left him alone to run after some mad hacker. It's as if fate has decided to show James how little he has learned.

Jeunet's gun is aimed at James much faster than James can draw, but he can throw himself at Jeunet. Guns are mainly good for long distance killings, anyway – this close James is the one with the real advantage, because he has both hands free.

They fall to the floor and block the isle, to the indignant protests of their fellow travellers. James sees Jeunet's gun getting knocked out of his hand, but the victory barely has time to register before someone screams: "Gun!"

The pandemonium he feared earlier breaks out. Someone kicks at James, catching him off guard, and Jeunet twists out of his grip. As he struggles to get up from the floor and away from the panicking crowd, James sees Jeunet's hand grab the gun. When he's back on his feet Jeunet is at the door of the carriage, looking back at him. James reaches for his Walther, anticipating the shot from Jeunet, but then a woman outside points at the Frenchman and shouts: "That man has a gun!" Suddenly there are guards approaching the carriage and Jeunet turns to run away instead.

Cursing, James follows.


	13. Hunter and Prey

_A/N: How can this only be 3000 words when it took so effing long to write? *cries*_

* * *

"_Arm yourself because no one else here will save you__  
The odds will betray you  
and I will replace you  
You can't deny the price it may never fulfil you  
It longs to kill you  
are you willing to die?_

_The coldest blood runs through my veins  
You know my name_

- Chris Cornell, _You Know My Name_

**Hunter and Prey**

"Hello, Mr Boothroyd!"

Q can't answer. His tongue feels like a dead fish in his mouth.

"Don't be shy, Monsieur," Jeunet says. "I know it's you. Or perhaps you simply prefer 'K'?"

_Oh. Shit._

Jeunet rattles on. "I recognised your ... qu'est-ce qu'on dit? Your _touch_, Mr Boothroyd. After all the years. And of course, it could not be anyone else – no one else has ever been better than me. That time, I let you be, because you did no harm to me. I was happy you showed me the ... the flaws in my system. But this time you did harm, Monsieur. And this time, I will do harm to you."

Q's brain runs at twice its usual speed, frantically trying to put the pieces together and figure out what has gone wrong. Did Jeunet discover Q's identity all those years ago and never act on it until now? He can't have uncovered it _now_, surely? It should be impossible, and it unnerves Q almost more than the knife at his throat to think that Jeunet could sidestep his carefully constructed safety precautions so easily.

"I will take away from you the things you love," Jeunet continued. "You took away my money, my business, and you took my poor Marie when you made her betray me. For this, I will kill you, Monsieur. But first I will kill your lover, so you will know, when I strangle you, that the hands around your throat killed him first. Then I will continue to crush everything you have ever touched, Mr Boothroyd. This is my promise to you. And when I am done, I will trace your employers and I will show them your corpses."

In any other scenario, the notion of Jeunet taking down 007 on his own would make Q smile. At this point, he can keep from laughing. Jeunet is in over his head, surely, but that doesn't help Q much; he doesn't doubt that the man standing behind him has been told to kill him if things should go south.

Chabrier makes a whimpering sound in the back of her throat. Q hopes she can't hear what her employer is saying; she must be scared enough already.

"Nothing to say?" Jeunet asks.

Q wonders what he is supposed to say to a man who wants to kill him.

"You're insane," he settles for. He makes it a calm statement, belying the fear that's crawling up his spine.

He expects a sharp counter remark, or perhaps a laugh. Instead, the carriage jerks as the train begins to slow down, and Q loses his balance. Thankfully he stumbles backwards and not forward, but his mind is still flooded by the all-consuming fear of accidentally cutting his own throat. As the panic begins to ebb away somewhat, Q listens again, but Jeunet is no longer talking to him. He's talking to someone else. He's talking to Bond.

Q's heart jumps. He can't hear everything they're saying, but he thinks he hears Jeunet say he's killed Chabrier.

Q looks down at the frightened face in front of him. _She's already dead to him._ Q feels like someone's poured a bucket of cold water over his head. The bodyguard's left hand, that has been gripping Q's wrist, lets him go. Out of the corner of his eye, Q sees how the man picks up a gun that has been lying on the sink beside them without Q even noticing it before now.

_I'm armed too,_ Q thinks. He had almost forgotten.

A sudden and unfamiliar wave of bravery washes over him. He can stop this. If the bodyguard slips up for just one moment, Q can manage to draw his gun. He can do it. He can save both of them. His heart beats like a jackhammer. For a moment he lives in a little bubble of hope and heroism. He waits for his moment.

"Hello?"

It's Bond.

The other man's voice tears Q out of the bubble: at once, he realises with brutal clarity what Jeunet has planned.

He also realises that the bodyguard isn't going to slip up.

The gun is aimed.

"Parlez!" the bodyguard hisses behind Q.

Q takes a deep breath. He looks into Chabrier's eyes. Tears are forming in them, reflecting the spotlights in the ceiling.

"I am so very, very sorr ..."

The knife is pressed tighter against his throat, forcing him to be silent or cut himself. The trigger is pulled, and the train screeches to a halt.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Q looks at the body in front of him. In a fraction of a second, it has gone from being the living, moving body of Marie Chabrier to being nothing but a wide-eyed corpse. The expression of fear that flashed across her face before she died was strangely wiped away the moment her eyes went blank.

Her legs are still warm against Q's. They flinched slightly when the bullet hit her, now they're still.

The man puts away the gun and tears the phone from Q's hand. He looks down at it to turn it off. When he does, the hand holding the knife at Q's throat moves away a couple of inches.

Maybe it's a reflex move Q's captor makes, or maybe he's getting distracted or overconfident, or maybe he just thinks Q's in shock and rendered harmless. It doesn't matter which. Q isn't sure he's not in shock, but he's certainly not intending to be harmless.

With his left hand, he grabs the hand that holds the knife. With his right hand, he pulls out his own gun. He spins on the spot so that he's face to face with the other man in the tiny compartment. It all happens in less than two seconds. The other man's eyes look down at Q – wide, like Chabrier's had been, but wide with astonishment rather than fear. Then, also like Chabrier's eyes, they go blank when Q pulls the trigger.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

There's no silencer on Q's gun, but the way its barrel is pressed against the body it's firing into takes away some of the sound. The man twitches in a strange fashion and Q aims a bit more carefully for a second shot, in the heart this time. He has to hold on to the man's body with both hands to keep it from toppling him. He manages to guide it down beside himself instead, until the bodyguard's head rests in Chabrier's lap.

Q almost leaves the train toilet without his phone, but he sees the bright screen between the other man's fingers and snatches it from his still warm hand. That makes him remember the crushed earpiece outside, and the laptop on the shelf above his seat. Q's brain feels like a building in a blackout, running on the emergency generator. Some rational part of his mind that's still up and running has decided to take the rains and temporarily deny access to all of the emotions that are making his body sweat and shake. He looks down at his clothes. Miraculously, he's not covered in blood. There are a few stains, but unless someone decides to study him carefully they probably won't guess what it is. The laptop is worth the risk.

He darts out of the door and almost reels at the light and the sound and the people around him. People are still leaving the carriage. Someone glares at him, perhaps having heard strange bangs from the lavatory. Q pushes past the people to his seat and grabs the laptop. He throws a glance at Bond's small bag. _"I will kill your lover."_ The words echo in Q's head. Part of Q wants to scream: "He's not actually my lover! You can leave him alone!" But Jeunet wouldn't hear him now, and, either way, he can't kill Bond. Can he?

Q leaves both his own bag and Bond's on the train, tucks the laptop under his arm and dials a number on his phone while he hurries off the train.

"How can I help you?"

Moneypenny's voice is like honey to Q's ears.

"I need a car to pick me up at St Pancras international, preferably five minutes ago, and I want Q-branch on the line."

"Q? You're not expected to come in today. Q-branch has already processed ..."

"Jeunet was here, Bond is gone, two dead bodies are about to be found on the Eurostar and I really don't want to be arrested for their murders, so could I have someone remove our luggage from the train and a car to pick me up, please!"

Moneypenny is stunned for all of half a second.

"The car is on its way. Walk towards the British Library. What happened?"

She hides the note of worry in her voice well, but not well enough.

"We got in a spot of trouble. Q-branch, now."

"Right. Got it. Putting you through."

He gets Jenkinson. He's not even annoyed by it, which says something about the state he's in.

"I'm going to give you a number. I want you to trace the phone. It's Michel Jeunet's, so it won't be your usual routine work."

Knowing no one in Q-branch could get into his personal phone in less than thirty minutes – and probably not in less than 30 hours – he settles for simply reading Jenkinson the number of his last received call. She repeats it back to him even as he hears her type.

"Then hail and track this earpiece," Q continues.

He gives her the frequency and issue number for Bond's earpiece from memory.

"There's no answer," she tells him. "And you're right about the phone-number. It's false. It will take some time to get the real one."

Q curses under his breath.

"Sir?" Jenkinson doesn't try to hide her worry like Moneypenny did. "What's going on?"

"The operation is going on. Keep working on the number, as fast as possible, and get me Bond."

"I can't track the earpiece at all, Sir. He must have turned it off."

"Why the hell would he do that?!"

He can almost hear Jenkinson jump as his voice turns sharp with frustration.

"It's 007, Sir," she says, as if that was an explanation. Q supposes it is.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The car can't have been stationed at Vauxhall, as quickly as it pulls up by Q's side. Wary, Q studies the driver. The driver studies him back, with slightly gaping mouth.

"You have blood on your suit, Sir!"

The baffled expression makes Q wonder if the man really can be MI6, but it also makes him sure it's not a trap. He jumps in, tells the man to get him to HQ as fast as he can, fastens his seatbelt and opens his laptop.

They're lucky it's Sunday. The unbroken sequence of green lights, however, has nothing to do with luck.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

When they reach the MI6 headquarters in record time, Q has already helped go over the search for the phone that had called his, hacked London's traffic control systems, studied CCTV-footage from St Pancras, and tried to contact Bond several times even though he could tell at his first attempt that Jenkinson was right about the device being shut down.

_Or destroyed_, he thinks, but pushes the thought aside.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

He usually turns heads when he walks into Q-branch, being the head of the department, but not like this. The skeleton crew that works Sundays all stop what they're doing and stare as Q barges in, almost runs up to the podium by the main screen, and connects his laptop. He doesn't blame them; they're used to seeing him walk in with his teacup in hand, wearing a cardigan and thick-rimmed glasses, or perhaps an off-the-rack suit if he has a meeting scheduled that day. They've never seen him with his hair brushed back – not to mention in a Savile Row suit – and they have certainly never seen him run.

"Jenkinson, report."

Jenkinson hurries up to him and gives a detailed report of their progress. While she talks, she looks from Q's new glasses to his clothes, down to the stains on the front of his suit, with widening eyes. Her freckles stand out as the skin underneath them pales.

Q listens to her as he pulls up the CCTV-footage again, now on the big screen that has pride of place in Q-branch. In the car, he located footage of Jeunet and Bond leaving the station. Now he follows them outside, jumping from camera to camera to try to track their movements. He knows they're likely far away already, but that only adds urgency to his search.

Jenkinson has finished her report and is answering Q's questions when M himself walks into the room in swift, confident strides. Moneypenny is at his side.

"What's happening here, Quartermaster?"

M's tone is calm, relying on his mere presence in Q-branch to indicate the extreme nature of the situation.

"We're attempting to track a mark we were told was already stopped in Paris," Q says, typing with one hand and accepting a cup of tea from Cook with the other, all while never taking his eyes off the feed. He probably shouldn't take a tone with M right now, but he's concentrating on his work and can't be bothered with social protocol at the moment.

"Where's Bond?" M asks. He somehow manages to make the two syllables convey a world of exasperation, contempt and reluctant admiration.

"I'm looking for him, too," is Q's reply.

"He's gone after Jeunet?"

"He seems to have followed him out of the station. I'm tracking their movements after that as we speak."

M comes up to stand next to him. Q still doesn't look away from the screen.

"Why can't we communicate with him?" M asks.

"He turned his earpiece off."

"Why?"

Q takes a sip of his tea.

"I don't know."

In the corner of his eye, Q sees M look him over, with less surprise and more clinical assessment than the Q-branch crew had. _Military man_, Q thinks.

"Not your blood, I hope?"

"No," Q confirms.

"Good."

Any further conversation on the topic is interrupted by Cook and Jenkinson, who call out "Sir!" simultaneously.

"We've got the phone number," Cook continues.

"Phone number?" M asks. Q doesn't have the time to explain.

"Call it," he tells Cook.

"Now?" Cook asks. He looks surprised.

"Yes, now!"

"Who's on the other end?" M asks. His tone is firm now, making clear that he's not happy about being ignored and that while he's certainly above making it an issue right now there might be cause for a talk later.

"Hopefully Jeunet." On a corner of the screen, a map of London shows the routes of Jeunet and Bond as Q establishes them. Occasionally they part, but the red line that marks Bond's route always rejoins the blue one that marks Jeunet's progress. At the moment, Q is fifteen minutes behind real time in tracking them. "If it is," he adds, "this will be much easier."

"It would be easier still if we could relay the information to Bond," M mutters to no one in particular.

"Put it on speaker," Q says as Cook calls the number.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Three signals echo through the room. Everyone goes quiet. The silence after each shrill tone is complete.

A click is heard, and then the background noise of traffic. Another half of a second of anticipation passes before a cold voice makes its perfectly articulated announcement:

"Whoever this is, your boss is about to be brutally killed, so I advise you to get another job."

Q doesn't know which sensation is strongest: the annoyance that he now has to resort to CCTV to find Jeunet, or the immense relief that Bond is alive. Some of the people in the room sink down in their chairs in disappointment; others flinch at the very thinly veiled anger in Bond's voice. Others still, probably the ones who have been around the longest and know Bond, smile in recognition.

"If you kill my boss, you'll have to look for another job yourself," Q says, "and I'm not sure there are that many people who would hire you."

Once again there's silence on the other end. When three full seconds have passed, Q wonders if there's a problem with the connection and Bond hasn't heard him. When the reply comes, it consists of one single syllable, spoken in no particular tone:

"Q."

"007. It would seem both of us were expecting someone else. Where are you? Do you have Jeunet's location?"

"I lost him four minutes ago in Highgate, heading towards Muswell Hill," Bond admits and gives his own exact location. "Where's the other man?" he adds. "And where are you?"

"I'm at HQ. The bodyguard is dead."

Q answers Bond absentmindedly, already thinking about other things. _Muswell Hill? What's in Muswell Hill?_ He pulls up several different-scaled maps of the area where Bond is to see if he can get some clue as to where Jeunet is heading.

"Could you perhaps turn your earpiece back on, or have you thrown it away?" he asks Bond.

"I didn't think there'd be anyone on the other side," Bond admits. A moment later Jenkinson smiles and tells Q they've got Bond's frequency open again and his location tracked. Q switches over to the more secure intercom-line.

He's about to mention to Bond that HQ would still have been on the other side, when he realises that the implication is that Bond didn't mean to take orders from HQ on this. _Because of me?_ a selfish part of Q's mind wonders. Another, more realistic, part replies:_ Yes, because of me, and because of Chabrier, and because of a long line of people before both of us – because so many of Bond's missions have ended that way_.

"I'm sorry about that," Q says, trying not to wonder what had gone through Bond's head as Jeunet had staged Q's death in his plan to punish both of them.

"What happened?" Bond asks, not acknowledging Q's apology.

"Chabrier was on the train," Q tells him, even though this isn't the time for storytelling. "The bodyguard shot her, you were meant to hear it and think I'd been killed. In the process he loosened his grip on me, and I managed to turn around and shoot him. So I suppose I should thank you for making me wear the gun. Especially since you ran off half-cocked and left me no other choice but to fend for myself."

"Obviously you had no problem fending for yourself," Bond counters, with no hint of remorse. "Your second kill in the field, Q. You could apply for Double O status."

Q's eyes are running over every detail on the maps in front of him. Bond's remark nearly startles him out of his focus.

"You want to see me demoted, 007? I'm hurt."

And then he sees it, the familiar address in front of him, and he remembers Jeunet's words: _"I will continue to crush everything you have ever touched_."

Q wonders how many near-heart attacks he can survive in one day.

"Bond, he's not heading towards Muswell Hill. He's heading towards East Finchley."

Q sees the dot that marks the tracking device in Bond's earpiece begin to move across the map even before the agent asks: "How do you know?"

"He knew me. He knows who I am. He's heading to the address where I lived the last time I hacked into his system."

"You don't live there anymore," Bond says, and Q knows better now than to ask how he knows that.

"No, but my father still does."


	14. God's in His Heaven

_"I'm your national anthem  
Boy put your hands up  
Give me a standing ovation"_

- Lana del Rey, _National Anthem_

**God's in His Heaven**

It is like one of those dreams within a dream: they start out completely absurd, fragmented and surreal, yet while you're dreaming you're somehow blind to the crimes against all laws of logic and nature and fully convinced that this is real life. Then you wake up, and you're in your own bed, and there are familiar walls around you, and you know what day it is, and you wonder how you could ever have believed that the previous dream was real. You go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, and you head to the kitchen to have breakfast, not even questioning that you're awake until the floor moves under your feet – and then you _truly_ wake up, and you remember in an instant what reality feels like.

James wakes up for the first time when he hears Q's voice. For a second, he barely knows where he is or what he's been doing. His chase after Jeunet seems chaotic and ill-conceived, his belief that Q was dead seems inexplicable. Q's obviously alive and well.

He answers Q's questions automatically, responding to the calm, professional tone almost by instinct. It's not until Q's voice wavers at the words "He's not heading towards Muswell Hill" that James truly wakes up. He snaps back into his business frame of mind so quickly it's almost dizzying. Of course he hasn't been wasting his time chasing Jeunet – Jeunet is the mark, for god's sake. A mark that has now gotten even further away.

James knows Q's present address (he makes it his business to know these things, and while it was even harder to find than old M's address, he still found it) but he doesn't know Q's father's address. Q gives it to him, and quickly starts listing different routes to get there, apparently looking for the quickest and most strategic one. James is already moving in the general direction of East Finchley, listening to Q's voice in his ears as he walks.

"Bond," Q says, and James knows he's serious when he's no longer addressing him as 007, "my father doesn't know I work for MI6. If at all possible, I would like you to keep it that way."

"Understood," James replies. This would have been his basic assumption either way.

"But more importantly, I would like you to keep him alive."

It's odd, but the slightly strained note just below the superficial calm of Q's voice somehow makes James respect the Quartermaster even more. A memory flashes through his head, not of the days spent in the priest hole at Skyfall, but of his more recent visit: the memory of M dying in his arms, of closing the grey eyes that had lost their steel, of holding back tears for the first time in years, and of not entirely succeeding in doing so. It's not something he thinks of often; he doesn't like to dwell on his weaknesses. Even so, he remembers the pain, how unexpected it was, and how it cut through his bones.

"Of course," he says. He doesn't let the emotion seep through. Q knows that James knows what it's like to lose a parent. That's more than enough information.

Mallory speaks, and James can tell by the way the sound carries even when M whispers that he must be standing right by Q.

"Are you sure you can handle this, Quartermaster?"

"I'm not sure anyone else can," Q replies. "Not fast enough."

James can't keep from smiling. Cheeky little brat. Unfortunately he doesn't get to hear M's reply, because Q speaks up again:

"I've got him! Bond, I have Jeunet's location. It's like I thought, he chose the slower route. He's half a mile ahead of you."

"Got it."

James speeds up, jogging past the next couple of buildings.

"Bond? He's almost there."

"I'm on it, Q!" James snaps, blood pumping rapidly through his heart and his head. "I can see him now."

A bit ahead, he sees Jeunet cross over to the other side of the street. They're only a few doors away from the address Q had given.

"Don't let him get away."

James crosses the street as well.

"I wasn't intending to."

There's a rush of static as Q takes a deep breath on the other end of the line.

"All right," Q says, and his voice has dropped a couple of notes. James didn't notice it going up before. "I can't turn off the lift from here, so I'm going to shut down the electricity of the whole sector for a while. Hold on."

James doesn't even have time to count to five before the lights go out all around him. It's not as impressive as it would have been at night, but the sky is cloudy and grey and it's still a very distinct transformation. James hears a few angry voices, and further away a few cars screech to a halt where a traffic light has gone black.

"Q, I bloody love you."

"Careful, 007, you're on speaker."

James is smiling, and although he can't see him he could swear that Q is too.

"Oh, trust me; if I weren't already aware of that I'd be saying something else entirely."

"And you felt the need to censor yourself?" Q says with mock surprise. "I think you underestimate how well the people here know you."

"Maybe I just wanted to be tactful," James replies as he enters the building.

"Hm. Seems unlikely, but we'll go with that for now." Q's voice is already distracted again. "I see you," he adds. "Jeunet is on his way to the second floor, you're going to the fourth. The lift should be on your floor."

The light goes back on. The doors to the lift open in front of James, and he dives in.

"Better hope this thing's quick," he says as he presses the button. The doors close.

"Don't scowl at me, 007," Q replies. "You could have been upstairs already if you had run faster."

"How do you ..." James looks around for a surveillance camera in the lift, but finds none. "Is there CCTV in this building?"

"No, I'm using my own cameras," Q says as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

He hears the sound of typing in the background and remembers what Q's face looked like bent in concentration over Jeunet's laptop, yesterday. It was only yesterday.

"You've installed cameras in your father's block of flats?"

James can't keep the disbelief out of his voice.

The doors open.

"I knew they'd come in handy some day," Q replies.

James steps out of the lift and immediately scans the hallway. It's empty. There are three doors on this floor, marked "Eastwood", "Schellenberg" and "Boothroyd". It's strange to think one of these names belongs to Q. James looks around for Q's cameras. He's about to give it up as impossible when Q says: "One o'clock," and now James detects the glint of a lens where he'd thought there was only a screw head.

"Bond?" M says. "The intelligence agencies of several countries would be grateful if you could bring Jeunet in alive."

James smiles slightly at the unspoken "which would mean MI6 gets to call in a few favours later" when, like the devil called forth by the mention of his name, Jeunet appears from the stairs. Their eyes meet. Jeunet glances at the gun in James' hand.

"Hello again," James says.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Jeunet stops.

"Monsieur McEwan. Congratulations. I was sure I had ... shaken you off some time ago."

Jeunet glances at the door behind James. _Boothroyd it is, then_, James thinks. It suits him a bit; it sounds like that strict, unshakeable, tea-drinking side of Q.

"I guess you're not as good as you think," James says. "Show me your hands. No sudden movements."

Jeunet raises his hands above his head with exaggerated slowness.

"What will you do?" he asks. "Kill me? It will not bring the young man back."

In James' ear, Q simply replies with a "hm," and James has to smile.

"I wouldn't be so sure," he says, stepping closer.

"Ah, but not all things that are lost can return. You took from me my money and my business, this I can get back. But I took the boy from you and you will not get him back. Not even if you shoot the werewolf with a silver bullet. That is _my_ victory."

Jeunet grins. James wonders if his smile was always so feral and unattractive and James simply didn't see it, or if the loss of his position and the murder of his lover have pushed Jeunet over the edge.

"This is what happens when you trick the devil," Jeunet says.

James keeps his gun trained on Jeunet's forehead, reaches over and takes the gun Jeunet hides under his jacket.

"You think you're the devil?" he asks, and gestures up at the little lens near the ceiling. "Smile at the camera, then. God sees you."

Then, because he believes in justice, he punches Jeunet in the gut and watches with satisfaction as the grey-haired man folds up in pain.

"Thank you," Q states, as calm as if he had been sipping a martini at the poolside all day and not both been the witness of murder and killed a man to save his life in the same morning. James barely knows if Q is sincerely thanking him for intercepting (and punching) Jeunet, or jokingly thanking him for indirectly calling Q God, but he thinks it might be a bit of both.

"You're welcome."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

A man and a woman arrive in a car to take Jeunet away. The man has sat down in the backseat with Jeunet and the woman is closing the door when James notices that someone is standing in the doorway of the building they just vacated, studying the proceedings.

The man is thin, and his shoulders are a bit hunched with age and bad posture, which is at least partly to blame for making him slightly shorter than his progeny. The eerily familiar mop of hair, on the other hand, shows only a few strands of grey. The glasses are an older model than Q's – but modest, not some huge 1970's glasses – and the dark brown suit looks equally well-chosen and well-used. A man who's spent his life in an office, following other people's orders, James imagines.

Boothroyd senior catches James looking and seems a bit embarrassed. He shifts his weight a couple of times, as if he's trying to decide whether to back off or step forward, and then he cautiously walks up to James.

"Excuse me, has there been some kind of trouble?" the man asks. His voice is as soft as Q's, but without the natural confidence and command that Q possesses as he says "Bond" in a warning tone in James' ear.

James instantly warms to the older man.

"Only some displeased customers trying to sabotage the power grid," he replies with his best public-servant-smile.

For a moment the man shows no reaction, and James wonders if he doesn't believe him. This close James can see the dark rings under his eyes, and detect the smell and skin tone of a lifelong smoker. The facial structure is similar to Q's, but not so much as to be striking. James finds himself wondering what Q's mother looked like. Or looks like – James doesn't even know if she's dead or just out of the picture.

"Will we be having problems with the power?" Mr Boothroyd asks.

"Don't worry," James says. "It's being taken care of by some very competent people."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Once he's in the passenger seat and has closed the door behind him, he smiles and says:

"Well, I guess now we know what you'll look like in twenty years' time, Quartermaster. I can't say it's very reassuring."

"Have you looked yourself in the mirror lately?" Q instantly replies. James only chuckles. "I dread to think what twenty more years will do to that face," Q continues.

"I'm flattered you think I will still be alive in twenty years time," James says.

Q huffs.

"I'm beginning to suspect we'll have to bury you alive and run a stake through your heart."

**00Q00Q00Q00**

Meeting with M and being debriefed takes longer than usual. When James stands by Eve's desk again it's late in the Sunday afternoon and the MI6-building is unusually quiet, but James is still wound up after the chase.

Behind Eve, rain is drumming against the window.

"Miss Moneypenny," he greets her.

"Mr Bond," she replies.

Her smile is as mischievous as ever. James likes her. He thinks he sees a bit of himself in her: the cheek, the warm charm she exudes, the stone cold steel visible just underneath which prevents any real insight – and the way she clearly enjoys it all.

James is a better shot, though.

"Do you happen to know if the Quartermaster is still around?" he asks.

She studies him for a moment.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Now, what kind of tone is that? After a day like this one, I think it would be rude to leave without saying goodbye, don't you?"

Eve is clearly unimpressed by this excuse.

"I heard the way you talked to him earlier, you know." Her gaze is stern, now. "You shouldn't flirt with him, Bond. It's not nice. He's not a woman."

James raises an eyebrow.

"Eve! Are you really that conservative or are you just jealous?" he asks in mock concern.

This earns him a proper glare.

"That's not what I meant. Women are used to being flirted with – especially women who look like the kind of women _you _usually flirt with."

"Like you?" James says, but she ignores him and goes on:

"They know how it works. They know when it's not serious. Most men don't."

"You don't think I'm serious?"

He smiles at her and she scoffs.

"Please."

"Suit yourself. Do you know where he is?"

She surrenders and replies:

"He has finished his debrief and he hasn't clocked out yet, so either he's still with the counsellor – which wouldn't be surprising; after a weekend with you he's probably ready for the straitjacket – or he's gone back down to Q-branch."

"Thank you."

He tips an imaginary hat at her. She shakes her head at him, but smiles.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

The main hall of Q-branch is partly in darkness, but a few brave souls are still scattered around the room, seated by their screens. In the silence James can hear the humming of the fans in every computer in the room, as well as the faint, muffled sounds of someone using Q-branch's own firing range further down the halls coming from the open door to the armoury.

Q stands in the middle of the room by his laptop, still clicking away. The suit jacket has been thrown over a nearby chair, and James takes a moment to study Q's form, which is usually hidden under cardigans and anoraks, but which is now highlighted by the grey trousers that fit like a glove and by the well tailored waistcoat. Q has opened the top button and rolled up the sleeves of the white shirt underneath. His hair has once again rebelled against Q's attempts at keeping it brushed back. James had hoped to find Q in his office, away from spying eyes and big ears, but he can improvise.

"Working late again, Quartermaster?" he asks.

Q starts and turns around, as does everyone else in the previously quiet room.

"Apparently," Q replies.

James walks up to him with his hands in his pockets and a slight smile on his lips. The smile grows when he sees Q's eyes flicker over his body before they quickly return to the screen. He noticed Q looking at him like that in the morning, before all hell broke loose. He's flattered it hasn't changed.

"I suppose you find it hard to leave, now that you're back in your kingdom," he says.

"And all's right with the world?" Q quips.

James moves around to stand at the other end of Q's desk, to be able to get at least _some_ eye contact.

"You might be the ruler of your little realm, Q, but you're hardly God."

This makes Q look up at last.

"That's not what you said before."

God help him, but the glint in Q's eyes and the slight quirk of his mouth sets fire to James' insides. Is Q really flirting in front of his employees?

But Q's people are used to Q's witty remarks, and to James flirting with all and sundry, and they don't look particularly shocked or suspicious. Of course they can't see the little nuances in Q's expression that tells James that this is more than a battle of wits.

"I was only replying to Jeunet's mad remarks. Don't let it go to your head."

Q only smiles in reply, and resumes his work.

"Eve said you'd been to see the counsellor," James says.

Q's smile fades.

"Yes, people usually think that's necessary when you've watched someone get executed in front of you because a sadistic bastard is trying to get to you."

James wants to tell him it's not his fault, but he knows the counsellor has already said it, and he knows Q understands it too, at least on an intellectual level. He also knows that believing it takes longer. James is not so sure he's fully mastered that art, himself.

"She also told me you've been cleared to leave," he says instead, returning to his initial subject.

"I need to finish this first," Q says, his eyes on the screen.

"What are you doing, exactly?"

"In layman's terms? Erasing my past."

"I'm surprised you haven't done that before."

Q grimaces.

"I had, to an extent. But I also laboured under the false assumption that it had already been done when I joined this organisation," he says in a surly tone.

"If you want something done properly you have to do it yourself, eh?"

"Indeed."

"And why does this have to be done tonight?"

This time Q doesn't answer by flirting, even though it's a perfect opening.

"Because I want it to be over with," he says instead. "And it's hardly night yet. I'd be grateful if you let me finish before it is."

James wants to say: "come with me instead." He wants to pull Q into his arms and into his bed. Just one more time – who could it hurt?

He considers his options. He could keep up this waning discussion in hopes of reaching a point where he can ask it in such a roundabout way that the other people in the room won't understand that he's propositioning their boss, but he doesn't think he has the patience. He could disregard their audience and ask straight out, but even if he doesn't believe M would fire either of them, sleeping with the Quartermaster would still land him in a long, uncomfortable disciplinary talk that he'd rather avoid – not to mention he doesn't believe Q will be inclined to just accept the offer and walk away with James in front of his underlings.

He fingers the keys in his pocket and a strategy occurs to him, but he hesitates. It's a gesture that could easily be misconstrued as meaning more than it does, and maybe Eve was right – maybe he should be careful about leading Q on. But then, Q hasn't shown any signs of misreading him so far.

He makes up his mind, walks around the desk and drops his home key in the pocket of Q's waistcoat.

"To help you sleep tonight, if you need it," he says.

Q looks surprised and glances down at his pocket, as if he actually expects to find sleeping pills there, but before he can look up again James has begun to walk away. He will go home, change out of these clothes and take a shower. Then he will fill up a glass of single malt, and wait for Q.

**00Q00Q00Q00**

* * *

A/N: _The End! What did you think? There's a plot for a sequel, but if I write that it will not be mission-based-fic anymore so there will be a change of tone. And also, I want to get back to writing Merlin-fic soon. Gah, I'm torn! What would you guys like to see?_


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